{"id":3147,"date":"2020-05-24T17:36:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T12:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?p=3147"},"modified":"2020-05-24T17:48:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T12:18:44","slug":"vintage-dusting-powder-boxes-in-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/vintage-dusting-powder-boxes-in-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Vintage Dusting Powder Boxes in the Family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY KASTURI MUKHERJEE<\/strong>
Asansol, West Bengal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My home is also home to three Vintage Dusting Powder Boxes. These vintage dusting powder boxes have been in the family from around the 1940s when my maternal grandparents got married. They belonged to my grandmother, Bani Bhattacharya, who brought these from her maiden home in Maldah, West Bengal. She shifted to Birbhum for a short period after her marriage, until finally she settled in Asansol with her family. Asansol is where we still live. It has been 33 years that my grandmother has passed away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of her objects of daily use are carefully preserved by my mother. The one on the extreme left in the photograph above is made out of silver and has a special place in my mother\u2019s closet; the other two are made out of brass and we still use these regularly. They are all ornate and for
me objets d\u2019art that occupy a place of pride in the feminine demesne of the family. I know, if they had tongues, they would have tales to tell, tales about my grandmother, my mother & her sister and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make-up gained a new momentum in the Victorian era in England. Powders and creams and lipstick and rouge came into vogue. Dusting powder boxes must have come into being back then. Victorian ladies were told and taught the importance of maintaining a beautiful appearance exclusively for the pleasure of men, and especially so during difficult times. Face powder was made of scented and lightly coloured starch. Powdered milk of magnesia, rice powder, French chalk and Venetian talc were also used. In 1877, Henry Tetlow discovered that dried and ground zinc oxide made an excellent pure white powder which did not grey when exposed to gas, candle and coal fumes. Pure white powder lightened the complexion. Colour tinted powders covered up blemishes. Powder was cheap and easy to make or buy and
easily passed as a medicine rather than face paint. It was applied by placing a scoop into a cotton bag and dabbing it onto the skin. Around the turn of the century, a rabbit\u2019s foot became widely used as a powder brush which in turn was situated inside a powder box. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

India being an English colony, no doubt, there existed a porousness between the two cultures. And hence, supposedly, dusting powder boxes found their way into the Indian way of life. Albeit, into the upper middle class, educated in the English ways, before it perforated into the other strata of Indian society. The popularity has lasted in India, especially because of the widespread use of talcum powder as a coolant in the country where summer months arenextensive and typified by sweltering heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III<\/p>\n\n\n\n