Decorative box

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Decorative box" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Though the purpose of a box may be purely functional, boxes can also be very decorative and artistic. Many boxes are used for promotional packaging, both commercially and privately. Markets for specialty boxes range from Home Hardware to Wedding Favors.

The most common type of decorative box is the feminine work box. It is usually fitted with a tray divided into many small compartments for needles, reels of silk and cotton, and other necessaries for stitchery. The date of its origin is unclear, but 17th-century examples exist, covered with silk and adorned with beads and embroidery.

No lady would have been without her work box in the 18th century. In the second half of that century, elaborate pains were taken to make these boxes dainty and elegant.

Work boxes are ordinarily portable, but at times they form the top of a stationary table.

A jewelry or jewellery box, also known as a casket, is a receptacle for trinkets, not only jewels. It may take a very modest form, covered in leather and lined with satin, or it may reach the monumental proportions of the jewel cabinets which were made for Marie Antoinette, one of which is at Windsor, and another at Versailles, the work of Schwerdfeger as cabinetmaker, Degault as miniature-painter, and Thomire as chaser.

A strong-box ( or safe) is a receptacle for money, deeds and securities. Its place has been taken in modern life by the safe. Some of those which have survived, such as that of Sir Thomas Bodley in the Bodleian library, possess locks with an extremely elaborate mechanism contrived in the under-side of the lid.

The knife-box or knife-case, a receptacle for knives and other table cutlery, is one of the most charming of the minor pieces of furniture which we owe to the artistic taste and mechanical ingenuity of the English cabinet-makers of the last quarter of the 18th century. Some of the most elegant and often ornate were the works of Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Occasionally flat-topped containers, they were most frequently either rod-shaped, or tall and narrow with a sloping top necessitated by a series of raised veins for exhibiting the handles of knives and the bowls of spoons. Mahogany and satinwood were the woods most frequently employed, and they were occasionally inlaid with marqueterie or edged with boxwood. These graceful receptacles, often made in pairs, still exist in large numbers; they are often converted into stationery cabinets. Another version is an open tray or rack, usually with a handle, also for the storage of table cutlery. If you are running short of money, making one of these boxes is a fun craft to do with the family.

A Bible Box is a box made to hold Bibles. These boxes started being manufactured in the 17th century.

An étui is a woman's ornamental case, usually carried in a pocket or purse. It holds small tools for daily use such as folding scissors, bodkins, needles, hairpins, tweezers, makeup pencils, etc. Some étuis were also used to carry doctors' lancets. These boxes were made of different materials such as wood, leather, ivory, silver, [1] gold, [2] tortoise shell, [3] mother of pearl, [4] and shagreen.[5]

Wooden wine boxes, also known as wooden wine crates are used to ship and store expensive wines in transit. Most wineries that use wooden boxes engrave their logo and designs on the front panel. These panels are usually highly detailed and used by wine collectors as decoration pieces for their bars or wine cellars. A typical wooden wine box holds either 6 or 12 750 ML bottles.

For the BBC3 comedy, see Snuff Box.

One of the more functional types of decorative boxes is the snuff box, which is now largely a relic of the once popular practice of taking snuff. At one time, this tiny decorative but utilitarian box was an indispensable accessory for every man of birth and breeding from the 18th century through the middle of the 19th century.

Artisans, such as the jeweller and the enameller bestowed infinite pains upon this object, which was as much a delicate bijou as a piece of utility. Gentlemen of Quality, fops, and dandies possessed a great variety of snuff-boxes, some of which were quite rich in detail, with frames of gold encased with diamonds. Other boxes were more ordinary. Made with potato-pulp, the cheapest wood available, they were extensively used.

Other popular materials used in making these boxes include:

• Tortoise-shell, a favorite material owing to its satin lustre;
• Mother-of-pearl, which was kept in its natural irridescent state, or gilded, or used together with silver; and
• Gold boxes, enriched with enamels or set with diamonds or other precious stones.

The lids were often adorned with a portrait, a classical vignette, or a portrait miniature, or by an old master.

Even after snuff-taking ceased to be popular in general, the practice lingered among diplomats. Monarchs retained the habit of bestowing snuff-boxes upon ambassadors and other intermediaries as a form of honor. As Talleyrand explained, the diplomatic corp found a ceremonious pinch to be a useful aid to reflection in a business interview.

We may trace much of modern lavishness in the distribution of decorations to the cessation of snuff-taking. Having a monarch invite one to take a pinch from a his snuff-box was a mark of distinction that was almost equivalent to having one's ear pulled by Napoleon. At the coronation of George IV of England, Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, the court jewellers, were paid £ 8205 for snuff-boxes for foreign ministers.

Today the snuffbox is collected by wealthy amateurs or museums. Some excellent examples command large sums. George, duke of Cambridge (1819-1904), possessed an important collection—After his death a Louis XV gold box was sold at auction for £ 2000.

• [1] http://www.alllancets.com/Sillan1.html Silver metal lancet cases
• [2] http://www.alllancets.com/gold.html Rare 18th century gold and gold plated lancet cases
• [3] http://www.alllancets.com/tortcas.html Tortoise shell lancet cases
• [4] http://www.alllancets.com/MOP.html Mother of Pearl lancet case c.1830
• [5] http://www.alllancets.com/sharcs.html Shagreen lancet cases