Lovely Gold & Crystal Perfume Bottle~Sold~

For once allow us to stray from silver to gold!!
This delicate bottle could actually have been used in two different ways:
As a perfume bottle or as a vinegar 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 as the stopper in also in gold and is not pierced in any ways.
This would then not have allowed the use of the fask for smelling salts.
But whatever the use it had, this is a truly Beautiful piece!

The flask itself is in heavy hand cut crystal, while the top of the bottle and the bottom of the flask as covered in a heavy 18 carat gold leaf.
The gold is worked in a ‘guilloche’ pattern with scrolls and lambrequin shapes. The gold is in perfect shape and the crystal does not show any chips.
We battled against a Louvre Antiquarian to obtain this piece and we do not regret it! Its gorgeous!

The Hallmark is under the Shape of an Eagle Head which indicates it as being created between 1838 and 1911.
We have not been able to identify the Makers Mark at this time.

H: 4.4"Reference number: SOV-102