Santa Claus Chocolate Mold
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This two piece, metal chocolate mold was designed to produce one Santa Claus head.
label: Description
content: Molds began appearing in the late 1840s to early 1850s in Europe. In the late 1880s, U.S. companies began manufacturing chocolate molds, but Germany remained the largest supplier to the U.S. until the early 1900s. During the First World War, U.S. firms began to gain more ground against their European counterparts.
label: Description
content: The design of molds often followed the trends of the time. The “classic period” of 1880-1910 consisted of very realistic pieces made to resemble an object as closely as possible. Chocolatiers would often set up small vignettes depicting a complicated scene. These were time consuming and painstakingly complicated. From 1910-1930, molds were redesigned to be simpler and rounder in appearance. Fantasy began replacing realism. The mechanical design of the molds also began to change to accommodate changes in technology, such as new rotary machines that were developed to spin multiple molds at the same time to evenly distribute the chocolate.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Food Technology
label: See more items in
content: Food
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association of the USA
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: AG.76-FT-04.0017B
label: catalog number
content: 76-FT-04.0017B
label: accession number
content: 315132
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Mold, Chocolate
label: Object Name
content: chocolate mold, santa
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 18 cm x 12.7 cm; 7 1/16 in x 5 in