25.Forbidden Fruit Lucite Jewelry-Austria
Desirable Forbidden Fruit lucite jewelry with embedded rhinestones.
Made in Austria in the late 1940's - early 1950's
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.
