Details
UNUSUAL DIAMOND AND GOLD VANITY CASE
Designed as a egg with reeded gold lozenge motifs, enhanced by baguette, single and circular-cut diamond flowers, opening to reveal a mirror, a comb, a cigarette holder, a lipstick holder and a powder and puff well, suspended from a gold fancy link chain, mounted in platinum and gold, in a suede fitted case
Signed by Cartier, Paris, No. 04328
The simple unadorned yet perfect symmetrically balanced egg symbolizes rebirth and resurrection to many civilizations; the ancient near easterns incorporated them into their spring planting festivals, the Egyptians placed them in tombs, the Greeks set them on top of graves, the Romans wrote odes about them, and the early christians used them as a reference to Easter. However, it was not until the thirteenth century that eggshells were painted. Three centuries later, Francois I of France received an eggshell with a wooden carving of Passion and thus the tradition for giving eggs at Easter was begun. The most resplendent eggs were those designed by Peter Carl Faberge which were exchanged by members of the Russian Court from 1885 to 1917. Designed a half century later, the Cartier vanity case is eloboratly decorated with diamonds in a similar manner to faberge's eggs, and also contains objects inside, albeit more utilitarian than the 'surprises' held within Faberge's creations.
Designed as a egg with reeded gold lozenge motifs, enhanced by baguette, single and circular-cut diamond flowers, opening to reveal a mirror, a comb, a cigarette holder, a lipstick holder and a powder and puff well, suspended from a gold fancy link chain, mounted in platinum and gold, in a suede fitted case
Signed by Cartier, Paris, No. 04328
The simple unadorned yet perfect symmetrically balanced egg symbolizes rebirth and resurrection to many civilizations; the ancient near easterns incorporated them into their spring planting festivals, the Egyptians placed them in tombs, the Greeks set them on top of graves, the Romans wrote odes about them, and the early christians used them as a reference to Easter. However, it was not until the thirteenth century that eggshells were painted. Three centuries later, Francois I of France received an eggshell with a wooden carving of Passion and thus the tradition for giving eggs at Easter was begun. The most resplendent eggs were those designed by Peter Carl Faberge which were exchanged by members of the Russian Court from 1885 to 1917. Designed a half century later, the Cartier vanity case is eloboratly decorated with diamonds in a similar manner to faberge's eggs, and also contains objects inside, albeit more utilitarian than the 'surprises' held within Faberge's creations.