This vanity case is an iconic model among Cartier creations. The striped gold and black enamel is known as 'Pékin' pattern while its form was inspired by Japense inrō, a box with compartments originally used to carry medicine and worn at the waist. A similar vanity case with matching cigarette holder is now in the Cartier collection and regularly exhibited and published (see G. Gautier, The Cartier Legend, London, 1980, p. 96; F. Cologni & E. Moccheti, L'Objet Cartier, Paris, p. 79; and The Art of Cartier, op. cit., cat.89). An almost identical example, numbered 0109, is in the collections of the Liangyi Museum, Hong Kong, and was published by M. Etherington-Smith in Vanities, 2011, fig. 31. According to Judy Rudoe, the jewelled rose diamond circle at one end was intended to contain a monogram if the client so wished (Judy Rudoe, Cartier 1900-1939, exhibition catalogue, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997, p. 127). Henri Lavabre first entered a maker's mark in 1904 and his atelier worked exclusively for Cartier between 1906 and 1921. The association continued until the 1930s and he supplied a large proportion of Cartier's gold and enamel cigarette and vanity cases in the 1920s.