Frank L. Koralewsky
American, born Germany, 1872-1941
Lock
1911
Roxbury, Massachusetts Iron with inlays of gold, silver, bronze, and copper on wood base
Frank L. Koralewsky served as a traditional ironwork- er's apprentice in his native north-German town of Stralsund. After obtaining journeyman status, he worked in various German shops before immigrating to Boston in the mid-1890s. By 1906 he was a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, specializing in locksmithing and hardware. This extremely intricate lock, which took seven years to complete, exemplifies the early-20th-century taste for sentimental medievalism and represents the pinnacle of the metalworking tradition at the turn of the 20th century. Exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, where it won a gold medal, the lock illustrates Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”