No-one likes general adverts, and ours hadn't been updated for ages, so we're having a clear-out and a change round to make the new ones useful to you. These new adverts bring in a small amount to help pay for the board and keep it free for you to use, so please do use them whenever you can, Let our links help you find great books on glass or a new piece for your collection. Thank you for supporting the Board.

Author Topic: Victorian Mercury Glass Perfume Bottle  (Read 5356 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Ivo

  • Author
  • Members
  • ***
  • Posts: 8213
  • Gender: Male
Mercury Glass Perfume
« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2006, 07:13:21 AM »
Sorry I never saw it the first time around.

It is not double walled mercury glass as described in the article and which has been in production well into the 20th century, but single glass with an inside mercury coating. This must have been fixed in some way - probably by lacquer - because the coating is susceptible to oxidation, and the object would have been unusable with a straightforward single mercury coating. The lacquer would provide only a limited protection against wear, but silvered glass was never meant to last forever - even the makers considered it cheap & cheerful and they certainly did not produce for posterity. That is why it is now rare where at one time it was overabundant.

The polychrome decoration on the frosted outside  is typical for the cottage industry around Haida, and the item itself is probably part of a silvered toilet set. As it is not possible to produce double walled hollow vessels with a narrow neck (think thermos) the perfume (or is it powder puff?) was made in solid glass using the same finish and decoration as the rest of the set: a tablet, a beaker, comb holder etc.

The blanks for much of the silvered glass decorated around Haida were produced by Hugo Wolff.

Support the Glass Message Board by finding a book via book-seek.com


Connie

  • Guest
Victorian Mercury Glass Perfume Bottle
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2006, 09:05:43 AM »
I still haven't added this to my website and I was doing more research on it.

I ran across this article by Ivo, Angela, and Diane Lytwyn.

Frank seemed to think the perfume has similar to Haida Bohemian work. But in the article, it says that the European mercury glass walls were thin and therefore enamel decorated. It said that American mercury glass was thick walled and had cut decoration.

My perfume has both cut ovals and enamel decoration. Do you think it is Bohemian or American?

Support the Glass Message Board by finding glass through glass-seek.com


 

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk
Visit the Glass Encyclopedia
link to glass encyclopedia
Visit the Online Glass Museum
link to glass museum


This website is provided by Angela Bowey, PO Box 113, Paihia 0247, New Zealand