Featured Another Wooden Box

Any Jewelry's thread on her studded box made me take a look at a locking box I have, where I keep - what else? - cameos, to see if it is at all similar. No, not really. And much newer, I think, although not new. Just putting it up for any thoughts/observations on possible age and origin.

The little feet are wood. The 'straps' & studs look more like ivory than photos capture and are Celluloid or similar. The cameo is helmet shell & no doubt Italian, which does not necessarily mean the box itself is. The metal decoration around the cameo & other metal elements look like brass. The interior has clearly been reworked & gussied up. The inner sides & bottom are painted. The only fabric is on the inside of the lid, around the mirror. Looks like there was once an upper tray, now missing. OK, here it is:

 

Thank you. It is actually stuffed with pieces I would like to sell & was a good way to transport & display them a few years back when I participated in a local holiday gift show. For now, it is a good way to keep them together where I can find them until I buckle down & get serious about selling off some stuff.

 

For anyone wondering about the sculpture in the background of the last photo, it is sort of like this one, except not signed, not as accurate about reproducing the original base & surely not worth nearly as much:

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.17.html/2018/19th-20th-century-sculpture-l18230

 

Aarrgghh! It is not Rebecca at the Well, it is a village scene with a woman in a lane.

https://cameotimes.com/index.php/profiles-1/religious/rebecca-at-the-well

But thanks for trying to help.

 

Wow! That's a beautiful box! The cameo is charming, never seen a box with a framed cameo on the lid.
I think the celluloid is real ivory, and feel the box to be 1850/1860

 

Exasperation is more like it. It seems to me the incidence of non-Rebeccas being described that way is decreasing somewhat but will probably never eradicate.

I think I did manage to get one common misidentification pretty much fixed, in the pre-Pinterest days, by telling eBay sellers of cameos with the 'Three Muses' that it was the Three Graces. Enough of them made the correction that eventually the correct ID propagated in the same way the error had. The error itself seems to have originated with the Miller book.

 

http://www.lamidesarts.fr/COFFRET-A-BIJOUX-APPLICATIONS-IVOIRE-MASSIF-EPOQUE-NAPOLEON-III-1850-187

https://picclick.fr/Boite-a-gant-en-loupe-de-thuya-et-263983459953.html

 

Of course it is so tempting to want to think it is genuine ivory. But I just spent some more time looking at, & touching, the bands on the box & then doing the same with the many little Celluloid boxes I have as well as the nearest to hand ivory cameos. All are smooth, but there is a subtle difference in the smoothness.

This is the best visual evidence, the way the lines stay so parallel & go on uninterrupted for so long. These are 2 adjacent segments:


In real ivory the lines have many little breaks & do not stay so parallel. I think if you could touch the box, tap it with a fingernail, you would agree it is some kind of plastic. The 'Celluloid' name was registered in 1870, so box could be as old as you suggest.

 

Mine is a faux wannabe.

 

It's a wonderful box and the cameo looks beautifully done. Sorry I can't add anything of help as to its origins.

 

Somehow I keep thinking yours is from the early 20th century, but I have no proof or real reason.

The shape of the mirror reminds me of what I think is an early 20th-century trend of putting "masks" around photographs. Although this was done earlier and later as well, that particular shape reminds me of this one from my collection:





The masks were put on by the photographers and printed that way. It really doesn't mean anything, but something about what I can see of the rest of the box also seems 20th-century-ish. Not sure why I posted this, except to show the cute photo and mention the similar shape!

 

All thoughts & additions welcome. The interior of the box looks like it underwent a thorough reworking. Think there is no reason to assume it was a restoration. There may not have been a mirror originally. Someone did a really good job with it, & it still seems very secure, nothing peeling away, and the sensibility may be precisely the time period you think it is. Box could have been knocking around for 20 years or more before needing fixing up. I can imagine someone really treasuring it when new.

 

My mother would have called those 'stair step children', an expression that had the subtext of pitying the poor mother, who must have spent years when she was rarely not pregnant.

 

My father's mother gave birth to 12 children, although a couple of them died in early childhood. They were spaced over a period of 20 years. I have seen some photos of the younger ones when they were little. My father was the 9th.

 

the depth and mirror remind me of......

 

It's a nice box, I think! Once I bought a cheap Japanese jewelry box sort of like this one. I added a fabric lining. It was fun! Might still have it around here somewhere. This photo was found online, just as an example.