Joseph Cornell's best known works are glass-fronted shadow boxes that house, and reveal, fanciful assemblages, but he made a few boxes that are sealed on every side. Paper fragments of maps and texts in various languages decorate the exterior of this sealed box. What is inside? When it is rotated or given a quick shake, musical notes emanate from the interior. X-rays reveal that the box contains the metal tines of a toy piano—the light gray horizontal bars in the x-radiograph on the right. The object that strikes the bars to create the jangling sound eludes even x-ray vision; it manifests itself only when the box is handled.
Joseph Cornell (1903–1972), Untitled (Music Box 1952–1954. Wooden box (possibly containing toy piano tines and a ball) with collage of printed and handwritten papers on all sides. Gift of Ellen Cantrowitz. 2017.365. Digital X-radiograph taken at 30kV and 450mAs, by Shan Kuang, Samuel H. Kress Fellow in Painting Conservation at The Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, 2018. ©️ Joseph Cornell/Artists Rights Society, New York.