Art Gallery Of Ontario

The Spice Box of Earth around 1960 ink on cardboard Leonard Cohen archives, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Audio description of the work This work is a drawing on a piece of sand brown cardboard slightly smaller than letter paper size. The cardboard is the everyday corrugated sort that would make up a cardboard box and the drawing is presumed to be made by a black ball point pen. Written in three lines and in all capital letters, The text “SPICE BOX” “OF” and “EARTH” takes up the centre of the cardboard. On the right hand side is a two dimensional drawing of a traditional Jewish Besamim container, also known as a spice box or spice tower. The spice box is drawn as a triangle on top of a square. Its base is three long thin tripod-like legs protruding from the bottom. At the very top of the spice box is a little pointed flag bearing three Hebrew letters, right to left, Kaf He Nun-Sofit. The triangle top of the spice box has its scaly texture indicated by row upon row of backwards l