Forbidden Fruit Lucite Jewelry-Austria

Forbidden Fruit Lucite Jewelry-Austria

Desirable Forbidden Fruit lucite jewelry with embedded rhinestones.
Originally thought to be made in Austria in the late 1940's - early 1950's but were actually made in the US with Austrian rhinestones. Characteristics of "Forbidden Fruit" jewelry is that they are either made of an opaque lucite or a translucent lucite of some color (but can also be clear) with embedded rhinestones. An example of coloring is the lemon which is a translucent yellow lucite with embedded yellow rhinestones. Forbidden Fruit typically has some sort of metal incorporated into the piece like the enamel painted leaves on the fruits, or the body of the butterfly, the bee on the bee hive, the stem of the mushroom, the husk on the corn, the radish tops, the eggplant leaf, etc. One piece that doesn't have metal is the watermelon. They were Austrian made and were most likely produced in the late 1940's early 1950's. In Harrice Miller's Official Price Guide to Costume Jewelry (Third Edition) page 76-77 it states they were made in the 1930's but most feel they were made later. My understanding is that the original cards that the pieces were sold on were labeled Forbidden Fruit so this name has been generally used for all the Austrian lucite embedded rhinestone pieces - not just the fruit pieces.

Several of my pieces were featured in Ann Pitman's Volume 3 Inside the Jewelry Box on pages 7-12.

July 2023Showing 1-31 of 319464 visitsAlbum by Jan GaughanPhotos by Jan Gaujghan

1 Berry	2 Forbidden Fruit on original card. Photo courtesy Pat Seal	3 Fruit Salad!	4 Green & Pink Grapes
5 Lemon	6 Lemon with opaque lucite and white milk glass. Photo courtesy Rita Martin.	7 Strawberry	8 Orange
9 Bee Hive. Private collection	10 Black Grapes	11 Plum	12 Berry
13 Pear	14 Carrots (Private collection)	15 Indian Corn (Private collection)	16 Hard to find scatter pin - grapes
17 Pink grapes white opaque stones.	18 Naked Grapes. Photo courtesy Rita Martin.	19 Fully dressed grapes with embedded milk glass stones.	20 Hard to Find - Purple grapes amethyst rhinestones.
21 White Grapes green rhinestones.	22 Large Butterfly (2" x 1 3/4") in red lucite with red rhinestones and small butterfly (1 1/4" X 3/4") with red lucite and amethyst rhinestones. Private Collection	23 Strawberries with red lucite red stones Pears with amber lucite light topaz stones Berries with clear lucite fuchsia stones	24 Rare Caterpillar 2 1/2" x 1/2". Yellow lucite with jonquil and blue/green Aurora Borealis rhinestones. (Private Collection)
25 Peach	26 Mushroom Private Collection	27 Pineapple	28 Figs?
29 Strawberry Forbidden Fruit Comparison to Crown Trifari Strawberry Pin shown to the right which is NOT Forbidden Fruit	30 Crown Trifari plastic strawberry pin. NOT Forbidden Fruit.	31 Artisan Made Lucite Fruit Parure. Custom made by jewelry artisan Dinah Taylor. For custom work e-mail Dinah