I carry a compact in my purse, a plastic one, peach colored with white swirls. The Fashion Fair label on it wore away years ago, and I only use it in the summer time to wipe away perspiration from my face.
Since my compact is very utilitarian, I was delighted to see some beautiful ones at two of my favorite auction houses this week. They came in a variety of styles and designs, and carried such familiar and not-so-familiar names as Elizabeth Arden, Richard Hudnut, Stratton, Helena Rubenstein, Houbigant, Dorothy Gray, Lionel Paris/NY, Bourjois, Regaud, Prince Matchabelli, Mondaine, Volupte and Harriet Hubbard Ayer.
The compacts were part of one house’s two-day Quality Auction, which meant that the prices were higher than usual. Everything goes for more at those sales, even things I could get inexpensively on the box-lot tables at any other time. There were 41 compacts all laid out on shelves in glass cabinets, to be viewed only by asking the auction assistant for a look.
The other grouping was at a regular sale at the second auction house. They were all lying on a table with other items, nothing special, just part of the crowd. Most were unmarked.
The Quality Auction had the winning compacts, though. They were vintage – 1930s and 1940s from U.S., French and British makers. There was one from the 1950s. The rarest of the lot (photo at right), according to the bid sheet, was a Dorothy Gray compact:
“Art Deco Dorothy Gray Fifth Avenue double vanity compact, white metal stepped Deco design w/blue enamel banding & oval Grecian plastic medallion & diamond design on back hinged mirror original puffs, unused. Original hinged Deco design box.”
Dorothy Gray was one the most popular cosmetics brands of the mid-20th century. Surprisingly, I could find very little about the company via Google.
The auction also featured a Hudnut “le Debut double compact, a Mondaine Cig-Vanette (I found one like it selling online for $245), Bourjois triple vanity case “Springtime in Paris,” Regaud “Un Air Embaume” double compact, Fillkwik three-part compact, a sterling silver Bourjois and an Elgin American loose powder compact.
I had come across the Hudnut name before but on perfume bottles. Richard Hudnut made a fortune in the late 19th and 20th centuries selling perfumes and beauty products in his New York and Paris stores and through the mail. (Hudnut compact at left is from the second auction house.) The British company Stratton was also familiar because I had come across one of its compacts at auction.
These compacts likely had been part of someone’s valued collection. Compacts, I learned, are highly collectible and many can still be gotten at a bargain. They even have their own collectors’ clubs, both in this country and the United Kingdom.
In 2004, the University of Arizona Museum of Art held an exhibit of compacts from a private collection. The exhibit contained some beautiful examples of early and contemporary compacts – so beautiful they looked like works of art. The exhibit’s catalog included a history of cosmetics and compacts (this website offered additional information).
Compacts became popular in the early part of the 20th century. And it seemed that they were not only confined to the purse. They were concealed in the heads of hatpins, bracelets, rings, evening bags and even in stuffed teddy bears and monkeys, according to one website.
Here’s a list of compact-makers and some tips on collecting them.
I didn’t hang around to see how much the compacts sold for. But I did find many for sale on the web, running up into the hundreds of dollars. A gold and diamond Boucheron compact from the 1960s was sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $3,923, and a Schuco mohair teddy bear from the 1930s was sold by the company for $310 in 2006. (Photo below is from the second auction house.)
