A patch box is a small lidded box made to hold the black patches of silk, velvet or taffeta that fashionable men and women applied to the face in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Patches were cut into shapes such as circles, stars and crescents and worn to highlight a pale complexion or conceal blemishes, including smallpox scars.
Patch boxes were made in silver, gold, tortoiseshell, porcelain and enamel, and often had a small mirror set inside the lid so that patches could be adjusted discreetly. The best-known English examples are the painted enamel boxes produced in the South Staffordshire towns of Bilston and Wednesbury and in Birmingham in the later eighteenth century, frequently decorated with landscapes, flowers or inscriptions such as souvenirs of a town or sentimental mottoes. Because similar small boxes were used for snuff, pills and trinkets, attribution can be loose, and the presence of a mirror is the clearest indication. Collectors look for crisp painting, intact enamel without cracks or restoration, original gilt-metal mounts and good hinges. Small and decorative, patch boxes display well in groups on a dressing table or within a vitrine.
