Underground Journal

Jewelry Boxes Down the Ages

History is not entirely clear about the birth of the jewelry box, but we do know that it dates back centuries when skilled craftsmen designed and created the most gorgeous looking boxes for ladies of class to keep their jewelry and other treasures. The early nineteen hundreds saw a renaissance of the jewelry box when those made of gold and silver became very popular. Today, such a box can fetch a handsome price at an auction. During this period, other types of jewelry boxes started becoming fashionable, such as those created with wood, porcelain, ceramic and ivory, intricately decorated with birds, flowers, horse shoes and four leaf clovers as symbols of good luck being very popular.

Women have always been in the forefront of fashion and jewelry and even in those days, women’s jewelry boxes were most often crafted in wood such as oak, walnut and maple which were very solid yet good to look at having been decorated with mirrors, glass and carvings and became such useful containers to store jewelry. The modern woman however will have no problem in finding a suitable box to keep her pieces of jewelry as there are so many in the market depending on the type of jewelry she has.

Some Boxes that are crafted for jewelry  look like mini wardrobes with swing doors, drawers, secret compartments, sliding dividers, carved legs and locks to protect the valuable treasures that are kept inside. Jewelry boxes that are heirlooms and have been handed down from generation to generation are more like puzzles than boxes because of the way they are made. At times they come as a single block of wood with no visible openings and only the owner will know the secret of opening it. Some have strips of woods that have to be pushed into various slots before the box can reveal its treasures. These are more like family keepsakes because no one can get their jewelry out in a hurry from these one of a kind boxes. These too were usually beautifully polished and painted with historical figures or embellished with gem stones, wood carvings and ceramic discs.

Today of course, the sophisticated woman prefer the chic and classic beauty of the leather jewelry box which is made of genuine leather and comes hand crafted with multiple trays and separate compartments to hold all her valuable jewelry such as diamond necklaces, ruby earrings, bracelets adorned with precious emeralds and may be a ring or two in star sapphires. These jewelry boxes are not just boxes but a statement of style that cries out ‘class’ and comes with a price that is not second to that of the contents inside the box.

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