Chinese Small Frog-Design Box & Holder with Incense

Long, low box that looks like it keeps secrets and perhaps a single pencil.

This small frog-design box and holder with incense is from China. In Chinese symbolism the frog is often linked with prosperity and with rain, which helps explain why it appears as a motif on small household objects. Slim rectangular box with a smooth lid in deep brown, streaked with darker grain and a few pale flecks. A small round carved or inlaid device sits at one end. The edges are crisp and the proportions strongly horizontal. It is 4.6 inches long, 1.25 deep and 0.75 high.

Handsome in the way only a tidy lid can be.