Lovely Antique Gold And Crystal Smelling Salts Bottle

A Lovely Antique 14 Carat Gold And Crystal Smelling Salts Bottle.

This delicate bottle could actually have been used in two different ways:
As a perfume bottle or as a smelling salts flask.

As you may recall, society ladies, in the 1800, were obliged to follow the fashion guidelines and hence wore very tightly corseted dresses. This resulted in the recurrence of fainting spells for the poor ‘socialites’!
The ‘vinaigrette’ soon became a main feature of the dressing code and took the loveliest forms, going from silver to vermeil and gold but always delicately carved.

In the case of our little flask, it could also have been a perfume bottle.
But whatever the use it had, this is a truly Beautiful piece!

The flask itself is in heavy hand cut crystal, worked with a beautiful double line of diamonds shapes on four sides while the top of the bottle is covered in a heavy 14 carat gold leaf.
The gold is worked in a ‘guilloche’ pattern with delicate dots. The gold is in perfect shape and the crystal only shows the tiniest chip towards the base.

The loveliest part of the flask is its beautiful little cork with the gold top shaped as a rooster!

The Piece tested for Gold and is Marked with the shape of an oak leaf, which would mean the bottle was stamped for gold between 1852 and 1906 in Holland.

H: 3.54"Reference number: CC-197