A Jeweled Gold and Enamel Art Deco Vanity Case, Strauss, Allard & Meyer for Cartier, Paris, Retailed by CF, London, 1927

While most goldsmiths or boîtiers ('box makers') had signed exclusive contracts with the important jewelers of the 1920s and 1930s during the height of fashion of precious Art Deco vanity cases, such as Cartier and van Cleef & Arpels, the firm of Strauss, Allard & Meyer continued to supply a number of different houses with their high quality objects of vertu. In 1926, the French firm had patented a closing device with no projecting part ensuring that the box would not catch and have one smooth surface by using a sliding panel hiding a spring blade device to raise the lid. The patent protected Stauss, Allard & Meyer against copyists in the states, ensuring that their jeweled and finely-enameled vanity cases remained as sought-after in the US as when they had first supplied the newly-opened Cartier shop in New York in 1912.

While the firm's signature color in enamel was a bright poppy red, they also became known for mounting finely-carved lapis lazuli panels or using enamel in imitation of this striking blue hardstone in the 1930s.

A diamond-set vanity case decorated with these signature red enamel borders around floral enameling, similar to that on the present lot, circa 1925, is part of the collection of magnificent Art Deco vanity cases owned by the Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan (Sarah Davis [ed], Jeweled Splendours of the Art Deco Era, London: Thames & Hudson, 2017, no 87, p. 176).