A handsome early 19th century box with Van Dyke inlay around the sides and tumbling block inlay on the top, bordered by satinwood and ebony; paper-lined interior with working lock and key; on bronze lion’s paw feet.
Available in time for holiday gift giving –– at Garden Court Antiques, 1700 16th Street in San Francisco’s SOMA design neighborhood. 🎁 ✨🗝️
In the glittering world of 1920s society, the cigarette case was more than its practical purpose – it became a symbol of status, romance, and the era’s decadent spirit. This small ornamental box served as a social prop, a gift of courtship, and a marker of sophistication.
In “The Beautiful and Damned,” Fitzgerald captures a pivotal moment where the cigarette case serves as a harbinger of marriage and wealth, positioned deliberately between the engagement ring and wedding band. The gesture reveals both the prosperity and precariousness of the era:
It was the third present he had given her; first had come the engagement ring, and then a little gold cigarette-case. He would be giving her many things now — clothes and jewels and friends and excitement. It seemed absurd that from now on he would pay for all her meals. It was going to cost: he wondered if he had not underestimated for this trip, and if he had not better cash a larger check. The question worried him. [..] “By God!” he muttered to himself. “I’m as good as married!”
The Beautiful And Damned By F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922 P. 141-2
Meanwhile, Dorothy Parker’s keen eye in Vanity Fair finds the cigarette case performing a different role. Her “Hate Song” captures the accessory as theatrical gesture, a prop in the comedy of manners:
I hate Actors; They ruin my evenings.
Actors: A Hate Song by Dorothy Parker, Vanity Fair, July 1919 issue p. 37
There are the Juveniles;
The Male Ingenues.
They always interpret the rôles of wealthy young sportsmen,
So that they can come running on in white flannels,
Carrying tennis racquets, and wearing spiked shoes.
Whenever the lights go up
They are discovered with their arms around some girl.
They wear their watches and handkerchiefs on their arms,
And they simply couldn’t play a scene without their cigarette cases.
They think that the three Greatest Names in American History
Are Hart, Schaffner, and Marx.
They are constantly giving interviews to the Sunday papers
Complaining about the car-loads of mash notes they receive.
They know they have it in them to do something Really Big;
They relate how Belasco told them that they would go far—
I wish they were on their way!
These writers, observing their glittering and restless society, found in this simple object a lens through which to view the complexities of their age.
^jh
