Art Deco Pressed Glass Powder Jar | Powder Blue Enamel Lid | Gold Stripe | Gilt Cartouche | Vanity Dresser Box | circa 1925–1935 | Boudoir Decor

The glass is clear and pressed — horizontal ribs running the full circumference of the body, interrupted at the base by four molded acanthus fan motifs, each one a small architectural gesture in pressed glass. It is the kind of detail that required a good mold and a manufacturer who believed even a powder jar earned proper ornamentation.

The lid is where the decade announces itself. Powder blue enamel, cool and even, crossed by two arcing bands of deeper blue edged in gold lines. At the center, a raised gilt cartouche — elongated, pointed, the form of a cathedral window compressed into a dresser-top finial. This is the color of Art Deco optimism: the blue of a clear morning in 1928, the gold of a world that still believed in luxury at every scale.

The underside of the lid carries the honest oxidation of a lid that has been lifted and replaced ten thousand times. The gilt cartouche has developed a warm, speckled patina — not damage, but evidence. Look at the base of the glass and you will see bubbles caught in it — the kind that suggest hands still involved in the making.

It sat on someone's dressing table once, in a room with a vanity mirror and a good lamp and a powder puff inside. It can do the same again.

Condition: Fair to good. Glass body solid and visually beautiful — horizontal ribs intact, base pattern clear. Slight crack on glass rim exterior, no splintering. Small chip or crack on interior glass near rim, extremely small, consistent with decades of lid contact. Slight dent on one side of glass body. Lid enamel surface: stain or fixed patina on top that does not lift; scratches on underside of lid. Gilt cartouche shows warm age patina. Brass collar rim surface patination consistent with age. Lid seats properly on glass body.

Hunter's Notes

I pulled this from the same room as the porcelain box — the same bedroom, the same Beverly Hills estate on January 9th. She had good taste, whoever she was. These two pieces were clearly chosen for the same dresser, the same idea of what a woman's private space should look like.

I grabbed this one for the lid. I have never seen Art Deco color work quite like it on a powder jar — that powder blue with the gold stripe, the gilt cartouche standing up at the center like a cathedral window in miniature. It stopped me. And then I picked it up and it had real weight to it, the kind of weight that tells you something was made to last.

Look at the base and you'll see bubbles caught in the glass — the kind that happen when hands are still involved in the making. The lid has honest wear: a stain on top that won't lift, scratches on the underside, a slight dent at one edge. There's the faintest crack along the glass rim and a tiny chip near the inside edge — no splintering, no danger, just age settling into form. Everything about this piece says: I was here. I was used. I was loved.

The Archive Record — JLM-250003

Product Specs