Crystal & gilt bronze casket with custom silk tufting

A late 19th century French jewelry casket in beveled crystal set within a gilt bronze frame. Every glass panel is hand etched: the lid carries a spray of flowers and leaves framed by a laurel wreath border, and the sides repeat the laurel in a continuous wreath around a small blossom. The bronze work is just as finely finished, with rope-twist edging, a ribbon-and-laurel band under the lid, and a cast face crowned with a feathered headdress at each corner. The casket rests on four scrolled loop feet bound with twisted cord.

Open the hinged lid and the surprise is inside: a pink insert, hand tufted with buttons in 100% mulberry silk by a Moroccan New York designer (my mom), made to cradle jewelry or small keepsakes and glowing through the etched glass from every side. Caskets like this were the jewel of the dressing table, where French glassmakers and bronze mounters each did their finest small-scale work. Late 19th century.

7" x 4" x 5"

Hand sourced in France, September 2026