Category Archives: French Hair Comb

European Liturgical Combs

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When a new bishop was consecrated in Medieval Europe, ceremony required several rituals be performed before he stepped onto the altar. He wore sandals, sat on a throne, covered his shoulders with an amice, and purified his hair. Ivory combs decorated with Biblical scenes were made specifically for this purpose.

This comb portrays the Torah portion where King David seduces Bathsheba. It was made in the 16th Century and resides in the Musée du Louvre.

The Creative Museum has this ivory comb, where two angels hold the bishop’s monogram securely on a pedestal.

Made in the 9th Century AD, this comb depicts Samson taming the lion and also resides in the Musée du Louvre.

The Latin inscription on the edge says, “This comb was sent by Queen Bertha to Pope Gregory.” Queen Bertha converted her husband King Ethelbert, thereby bringing Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. Although the historical event occurred c. 590 AD, the comb was made in the second half of the 12th century and resides in London’s British Museum.

This Northern Italian 15th-Century comb depicts the Adoration of the Magi (also known as the Three Kings) and can be seen in the Musée du Louvre.

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For more scholarly research, please examine

Le peigne: Dans le monde by Robert Bollé

Two Lovely Art Deco Combs on Ebay

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I call this comb, “Walk Like an Egyptian,” after The Bangles song. It sold for $411.66 on July 24, 2011.

The comb is a unique 1920’s Art Deco Egyptian Revival piece. The artist painted an Egyptian figure in a papyrus motif on celluloid. He is wearing a necklace and two matching bracelets. Rhinestones edge the flowers and dot the triangular decorative bar underneath.

This is a Maltese Falcon. Congratulations to the winner. I think I know whose snipe bid came in second. Siento tu corazón roto, pobrecita mia.

Another lovely French ivory comb with a hand-enameled deep turquoise design, punctuated with black and white rhinestones, sold for $212.50 on August 13.

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For more scholarly research, please examine

Art Deco Jewelry: Modernist Masterworks and their Makers

Celluloid Combs: Leominster, MA, and France’s Oyonnax Valley

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Who invented celluloid? The credit cannot go to one person or one continent. However, the world’s first thermoplastic was registered in 1870. With celluloid, heat and machines could be used to mold, cut, and carve many objects per hour for the first time. Capitalists invested. Artists’ imaginations went wild. Endless possibilities of color, shape, and intricacy gave birth to the Art Deco Movement, and the Industrial Revolution met comb making.

Two of the most famous manufacturing areas at the turn of the 20th Century were in Leominster, Massachussets, and France’s Oyonnax Valley. Leominster combs were unsigned. However, the most famous designer of Oyonnax was Auguste Bonaz.

What I want to show is how designer, material, hand tools, machine, manufacturing process, and factory were one, while the art had infinite identities.

This comb-rubbing machine resides in an old Leominster factory. It made about 1300 revolutions per minute and held the parts of celluloid combs together.

These are tools used by Leominster factory workers to do hand work on more expensive pieces.

This machine is a Farnham Plummer, which could cut 120-dozen side combs a day, in horn. It could be constructed to cut combs of any size.

In Oyonnax, you see a factory of similar turning machines made by French inventors.

And here is the breathtaking art they produced.

American Celluloid Combs from The Creative Museum.

Auguste Bonaz: from The Creative Museum, The Mary Bachman Collection, The Myrna Klitzke Collection, and The Jo Sullivan Collection.

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For more scholarly research, please examine

Collector’s Guide to Hair Combs: Identification and Values by Mary Bachman

The Comb: Its History and Development by Jen Cruse

Comb Making in America by Bernard W. Doyle

Le peigne: Dans le monde by Robert Bollé

Christies Hong Kong Hair Comb

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A student of jewelry history had a question about this tortoiseshell comb. “Where does it come from?” she asked.





It sold at Christie’s in Hong Kong for $10,777 in April of 2004 and is decorated with baroque pearls, diamonds and enamel. The lot information did not list where the piece was made. Looking at the shape of the hair pin itself, especially the curved tines, I’m thinking 20th-Century France? Frankly the piece looks like Alexandre de Paris could have made it, but of course, they use rhinestones and modern acrylic plastics. I have a hairpin in the same shape with a glass flower on top. Anyway, I’m stumped. Any ideas?

Clément Joyard Spiderweb Comb

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Morticia Addams could not have dreamed of a more appropriate comb. This mantilla spiderweb was designed by Clément Joyard, c. 1910. He, along with Bonaz, Léon Arbez-Carme, and Marius Camet, were among the famous designers who had their combs made in the celluloid factories of France’s Oyonnax Valley. Happy Early Halloween? :-)

For more scholarly research, please examine

The Comb, by Jen Cruse

Le Peigne dans le Monde, by Robert Bollé

Charlemagne Crown, Carolus Magnus

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I believe Diana Scarisbrick put Charlemagne’s original crown on the cover of her book, Royal Jewels: From Charlemagne to the Romanovs

A Carolus Magnus-style crown was also made in 1804 for Napoleon’s coronation.

What I like about Napoleon’s version is that the design resembles a Dogon crown in The Creative Museum. Its theme is the honor of ancestors, as the chief sits atop and remembers.

The Dogon people live in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger River in West Africa.

Heavily involved in the slave trade, the French had established strong presence on the West African coast as early as 1659. Their port was in St. Louis, or present-day Senegal. If you look on a map, Senegal is but a few miles away from Mopti, Mali, home of the Dogon.

Do the crowns allow us to connect the dots?

Auguste Bonaz in the Machine

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The Industrial Revolution was built on the invention of new materials and the machines that allowed them to be mass produced into cheap products, quickly. The exploitation of sweatshop laborers had a profound impact on society. Plastic comb making was no exception.

In America, the most famous factory was in Leominster, Massachusetts. In France, combs were made in Oyonnax, an administrative region of Ain, which is located in the Rhône-Alpes. The town even has a Museum of the Comb and of the Plastics Industry.

Some of Auguste Bonaz’s combs were made there.

Today, collectors think only about the artwork, the artist, design genius, and have an image of a master carving a masterpiece with his own hands.

After 1900, however, women sat for 16 hours a day in front of hydroelectrically powered turning machines. Then the French mechanic Humbert adapted the band saw, which allowed plastic combs to be cut in patterns. In 1871, Lyon Vuillermoz invented a machine that enabled a worker to punch the pattern into the plastic with a single stroke of the arm.

Here is what the women who made plastic combs in Oyonnax looked like.

Here are some of Auguste Bonaz’s glorious designs that they might have made.

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For more scholarly research, please examine

The Comb: Its History and Development by Jen Cruse

Les matieres plastiques dans l’art contemporain: 23 mai-4 juillet 1992, exposition a Valexpo, Oyonnax (French Edition)

Comb Making in America

Plastic Jewelry of the Twentieth Century: Identification & Value Guide

Creative Museum: Haute Couture Combs

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Par le Creative Museum:

Les défilés de Haute Couture sont toujours attendus avec intérêt car on aime à être ébloui par la féerie de couleurs et de formes qui s’y déploient. Les grands couturiers donnent tout pouvoir à leur imagination pour concevoir des parures vestimentaires qui frappent le regard et soient en même temps appréciées au même titre que des œuvres d’art.

De ce fait, une création prendra tout son sens si elle est accompagnée des accessoires assortis. Coiffure, peignes, chapeau, maquillage, ceinture ou chaussures doivent ajouter une note particulière : soit accompagner, soit contraster ou encore renforcer un effet.

Il est donc intéressant d’observer les ornements de coiffure créés par les grands couturiers pour certains défilés car ils évoquent à eux seuls le monde de la mode et l’univers particulier des créateurs.

Comb by Chanel


Two combs with enamelled design, by Alexandre


High comb by Christian Dior

Pour voir plus de peignes par des designers de mode, rechercher Lea Stein, Alexandre, Chanel, Adrien Mann dans le Creative Museum:

My Ebay Auction Was Taken Down. I Put It Up Again.

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My ebay auction was taken down because I used a certain word. This comb was made in 1890. It is a legal item, which is why items of a similar material and date are sold at every auction house in the world. Beginning price: $24.99. Here is the new link.

I really didn’t want to put this on my blog, but for all the people who were watching and bidding, I thought it would be convenient for them to have the new link. I apologize for any flutter caused.