Combs

Many kinds of combs have been used through the ages for personal grooming. They were traditionally made of ivory, tortoiseshell, horn, or wood. Some of the items on view were produced in Japan before 1961. These handmade boxwood combs display an enormous variety of forms and functions. In the late nineteenth century, efforts were made in industrially advanced Europe to replace the scarce and expensive natural materials with plastics such as celluloid.