Cigarette Box and Nesting Ashtray Set, Ribbed White Ceramic with Applied Roses, c. 1930-1950

The Piece

A two-part smoking set in creamy white glazed ceramic, designed as a single object: a lidded box at one end for cigarettes, and an open well at the other holding a removable ashtray that lifts out on molded tabs. Slide the tray free and the tabs form little rests along the rim — a small piece of engineering solved with nothing but clay.

The box is wrapped on all four sides in tight vertical ribbing that reads like a pleated screen, and the lid rises from that into a radiating sunburst of molded rays. At the center sits a hand-applied bouquet: a full-blown rose, a trumpet blossom, and a scatter of leaves and buds, each petal pressed and attached by hand before firing, so no two examples are identical.

The whole surface carries a dense allover craquelure — a fine web of crazing that covers every panel and has developed over decades into something closer to a texture than a flaw. The ashtray well shows a soft amber bloom at its center from a working life of actual use.

History & Provenance

The smoking set was once standard equipment in an American living room. Through the 1940s and 1950s, when smoking indoors was simply what people did, a matched box and tray sat on the coffee table of nearly every home that entertained — and manufacturers competed to make them decorative rather than merely functional. Ribbed and fluted bodies, molded sunbursts, and hand-applied porcelain flowers were the vocabulary of the moment, drawn from the tail end of Art Deco geometry crossed with the romantic floral revival that followed the war.

Applied floral work is the detail that separates the better examples. Each blossom was formed by hand from soft clay and attached before glazing, which is slow, skilled, expensive work, and it is why these pieces survive as decorative objects long after their original purpose disappeared. This set carries no visible maker's mark, which is typical — giftware ceramics of the period were identified by a paper label at the point of sale.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

Nobody needs a cigarette box, which is exactly why this one is useful. The lidded compartment is the right size for matches, playing cards, guitar picks, hair ties, paper clips, or the small things that otherwise live loose in a drawer, and the tray lifts out to hold rings, keys, or cufflinks on a nightstand. On a bar cart it becomes a spot for stir sticks and a place to set a lime. The ivory glaze and crazed surface sit naturally with brass, walnut, marble, and warm paint, and the sculptural lid means it earns its place even doing nothing at all.

It is also a genuinely good piece of period design — the kind of object people pick up and turn over. A note on care: crazed glaze is porous, so keep it dry, wipe with a barely damp cloth rather than washing, and never soak it or put it in the dishwasher, which drives moisture into the crazing and darkens the lines permanently. Handle the lid by its edges rather than the flowers; applied petals are the first thing to go.