Victorian Tortoiseshell Card Case with Locking Mechanism
You must be a subscriber, and be logged in to view price and dealer details.
Subscribe Now to view actual auction price for this item
When you subscribe, you have the option of setting the currency in which to display prices to $Au, $US, $NZ or Stg.
- Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910. - Tortoiseshell - Tortoiseshell is a translucent material that comes from the horny carapace of a certain types of turtles, including the hawksbill turtle. It is often therefore mounted on a colour underground - often red - or inlaid with gold or silver thread, as seen in Boulle furniture.
The texture and colour nuances of the material are extremely important. Heated tortoiseshell can easily be formed into various shapes. Like other natural materials, tortoiseshell becomes more beautiful with use. In a time before plastic, tortoiseshell was widely used for small objects such as combs and powder compacts.
In 1973, the trade of tortoiseshell worldwide was banned under CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Prior to importing or exporting items containing tortoiseshell a CITES permit must be obtained. Tortoiseshell items cannot be traded on Ebay.
"Faux tortoiseshell", another case of man initiating nature, is made from old-style plastics such as celluloid and cellulos and is coloured with red, yellow and brown spots to imitate the genuine article. It is commonly used in glasses frames, musical instruments and costume jewellery.
This item has been included into following indexes:
Visually similar items
Twenty-six hand drawn & painted Turkish anatomical & medical drawings, [26], based on original medical texts composed in the 15th century by the Turkish physician Serafettin Sabuncuoglu. At that time, it represented the most detailed anatomical explanation
Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-1880) and Frederick Charles Terry (1827-1869), a bound collection of engravings and lithographs depicting Sydney and its environs, 16 x 18.5 cm (each)
Victorian musical photograph album, with illustrations of the life and times of Queen Victoria, with German music movement at the back by Junghans playing 4¼in discs. Some damage to the comb of the music box, album in good condition with a black covering o
A Victorian mother of pearl inlaid and gilded black lacquer papier mache stationary compendium, circa 1850, 42 cm high, 39 cm wide, 35 cm deep