The ever-coveted Bakelite "peacock button" of 1922 is actually a misnomer since the birds are not peacocks, but two rather striking pheasants. An essential prize for the collector of Bakelite or any relic related to the Art Nouveau style, this fancy button pops up here and there in antique books about the fashionable baubles that came into existence during the interwar years. A throwback to the Gay Nineties, the brass birds are pinned around a deeply gleaming and purplish egg. As if sharing the duties of hatching the jewel, the gilded fowl face each other in a frilly nest of plentiful ornamentation—virtually caged in a wreath of ropy spirals. Notice that the chocolate Bakelite is notched around the border, bringing an extra round of flamboyance to this very hoity-toity button.
-Sherbert McGee
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