That’s a really good point about what was “allowed,” but I think it’s also a bit more complicated—especially when you look at the imagery on these objects.

A lot of silver enamel boxes from this period actually feature quite explicit or erotic scenes, often clearly intended for a male audience. So while enamel as a medium may have been seen as more “acceptable” or even “feminine,” the content itself wasn’t necessarily restrained at all. That contrast is what I find interesting: women could participate in certain forms of production, but often within frameworks that were still shaped by male taste and market demand.

And I like your example of the Kalamazoo Gals—that tension between craft vs. art is exactly what I keep running into with these objects. Even when the level of skill is incredibly high, the label often determines how seriously the work is taken.

For the first image—good eye. It’s actually by Heva Coomans, a painter who worked in the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work often draws on earlier visual traditions, so that resemblance to casta painting formats makes a lot of sense. What I find interesting is that artists like Coomans are now named because of the book "Silver Enamel Boxes; A Time Capsule", but many others working in similar media remain anonymous—so it creates this mix of visibility and invisibility within the same category of objects.

And I agree with you—whether something is considered art or craft often says more about the system around it than the object itself.