Carved, Painted Old Folk Art Whimsy with Glass Marble Ball (ex. Matt King collection) lap desk Direction is established by the

Direction is established by the nicely detailed compass at bottom the left

Great looking on the desk or side table or wherever

with flip up blade at the ready to read the sun-- but this is only the second I've found

with empty pages scattered throughout

Carved, Painted Old Folk Art Whimsy with Glass Marble Ball (ex. Matt King collection) lap desk Direction is established by theI watched this one recently come and go in at auction as part of the late dealer collector Matt King's estate, one in a lot of several objects. (With most everything fetching prices way beyond me, I gave up.). But then this little whimsy showed up elsewhere (I guess the buyer bought the lot for something else in it) so I grabbed it. How that marble got inside is a bit less of a mystery than I thought (one short end shows a diagonal cut, so the wood