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A close cousin of the jewelry box is the trinket box. As Victorians filled their homes with curiosities, souvenirs, gadgets, and other knick-knacks, they embraced these gorgeous containers, which often featured miniature figures of kids, flowers, or animals on the lids. Characters based on children's illustrations by Kate Greenaway were particularly popular motifs for these boxes. In the early 1900s, metal jewelry caskets flourished. Mass-produced in Europe, they were sold to U.S. customers through mail-order catalogs such as Sears & Roebuck, Marshall Fields, and Montgomery Ward. Cast of antimonial lead, the boxes would be electroplated in copper and finished in silver or gold with names like French Bronze, Roman Gold, Pompeian Gold, French Gray, and Parisian Silver. Later, these metal boxes were also enameled with ivory. Inside, these boxes would be lined with velvet, satin, faille, or silk. The emergence of the naturalistic Art Nouveau movement led to flowing organic motifs, such as sinewy flowers, fluttering birds, and the magnificent tresses of beautiful women. Keeping with Victorian tradition, the type of flowers on the jewelry box could represent a coded romantic message: four-leaf clovers meant good luck, daisies meant innocence, and roses were for love. Since most of these metal boxes, made from the turn of the century to the 1920s, have been destroyed or fallen apart, they are highly sought by collectors today.
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