Classic British design with a distinctly Scandinavian sensibility — exactly the synthesis that defined Luciano Ercolani’s vision for Ercol from the outset.
The Pandora’s Box is one of Ercol’s most enduring designs. Simple modernist form: two drawers to one end, flanked by open magazine space, organic apertures cut into the sides, the whole piece set on castors to emphasise its lightness. It sits low, it moves easily, it works in almost any room.
This example is British elm — the older, rarer stock, milled before Dutch Elm disease ended the supply. The grain has been carefully conserved rather than restored. You wouldn’t take a sander to a Mackintosh chair to make it look new — that would be removing precisely what makes it worth owning. The same principle applies here. The surface was never cut back. Instead, tannin staining was lifted with oxalic acid, the original finish worked with rather than stripped, the grain allowed to speak for itself.
What emerged was extraordinary. The pub owners — this piece spent fifty years in a pub — had laid their own layer of brown varnish over the top. Beneath it, untouched, was Ercolani’s original blonde elm finish. And beneath that, the grain matching that tells you everything about how this piece was made. Ercol’s craftsmen selected and oriented each plank so the figure flows continuously across the surface. They were working for a clear finish from the outset. They knew you would be looking at this.
What you receive is a piece whose antique future is intact. The patina it carries now is the foundation for the patina it will develop in your home. Anew, but not new.
