Tiny Carved Wooden Skull Paper Knife mid-century Mexican The handle at the middle

The handle at the middle of the lid probably once had a tassel attached

who made this in Miss Adams' classroom

This I think would be the absolutely ideal vase for a huge Asiatic lily

I purchased these and a few other pencil drawings by the same unknown artist from a dealer in Maine

and left his scholarship at the academy to become a professional magician

Tiny Carved Wooden Skull Paper Knife mid-century Mexican The handle at the middleI find this rather a haunting little carving, I assume meant to serve as a letter opener, and certainly with well more than a hundred years on it I have to think it has opened some letters bearing pretty sad news. The skull itself is tiny, but reads very clearly as a skull, which I've shot with some magnification to get a better sense of its details, which make it look a bit more crude than with viewed by the eye alone. Pretty amazing. 4" long; skull