This box was made at a time when Joseph Cornell incorporated anecdotes into his objects, this box contains the following legend pasted in it:
"On a moonlit night in the winter of 1855
the carriage of Maria Taglioni was halted by a Russian highwayman, and
that ethereal creature commanded to dance for this audience of one upon
a panther's skin spread over the snow beneath the stars. From this
little
actuality arose the legend that, to keep alive the memory of this
adventure
so precious to her, Taglioni formed the habit of placing a piece of ice
in her jewel casket or dressing table drawer where melting among the
sparkling
stones, there was evoked a hint of the starlit heavens over the
ice-covered
landscape."