Carried right, the Vanity reads as the house's working signature: the boxy, lipped-top silhouette descended from Vuitton's nineteenth-century travel vanity cases. It carries Monogram canvas - the printed cotton-coated canvas Vuitton has produced since 1896, and the material reads as decisively as the model that frames it. The 4 by 5.5 by 3.5 inch format reads as miniature rather than incidental, which is precisely the point. It is the kind of object the auction market quietly rewards over time, especially in clean, considered examples. Vuitton's vanity cases descend directly from its nineteenth-century travel canisters, where the house built compartments for cosmetics that doubled as containers for jewelry. Catalogued by Maison de Beaubigonne for the buyer who has already chosen.

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