Topic: 19th century ormolu and opaline glass French (I think) perfume bottle & question

[Trebor]

Hi you should never use copper polish as you will remove the color (Patiner) especially if it is spelter .Best stick to water just to remove the old polish that is corrosive

[Paul S.]

if I may add two penn'th .........  the stopper looks reasonable quality with half decent grinding and a short bevelled finial...............I think the casting of the body is a tad too complex for a modern cheap foreign import, and I would agree with the spelter idea.  This alloy was a cheap alternative to bronze or proper gilt castings  -  which you might have expected on a C19 French  'toilette' accesory  -  and simulated the look of gold.    Can you remove the colour (patina) from Spelter??      Certainly the greek key motif is right for the period in question, and the French were possibly the best at Opaline (isn't this the one that shows the 'fire' when held up the the light?)   To me it looks right, but then small pics. on the screen have been known to be misleading       I've just re-read the comment about a 'chain...........where do we think this piece would have hung??

[chopin-liszt]

It's opalescent glass which has the fire - opaline is something different Paul, it's just sort of milky.

[Paul S.]

thanks Sue   -  broken my own rule of not checking before opening my mouth  -  my excuse is that I'm at work :pb:

[flying free]

Paul thanks for your comments    I'm sorry but with all my googling I now can't find the two examples I found that had a gilt chain attached to three rings on the neck of their bottles.  But mine has three nicked areas in the ...spelter... of the neck, one of which is like a broken ring.  From that and seeing those pictures that I now can't find, I guessed mine was also supposed to have that.  As to where it might hang, I have no idea why it or the others may have this chain and links, as mine I think, is far too heavy a piece for it to dangle off a chatelaine belt or anywhere similar really.  The two others looked equally sizeable so who knows.  Perhaps chatelaines were made of more sturdy stuff
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