Topic: Scent/Perfume Bottle

[Shratno]

Hi and thank you for add to this forum. This bottle is from my wife’s great grand parents in England. It is somewhat square, has no seems and is quite heavy for its size.  The back is the same as the front and the sides are less ornate. The dauber is broken and there is a crack at the top opening. Looking for info on era, and potential maker. Sorry for the quality of the photo; 125kb doesn’t allow much! Thanks in advance.

[chopin-liszt]

Hello and welcome. 
Thanks for struggling with your image and posting it directly to the board - that is much appreciated.
We do have a lot of techie help and info here:-
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,34093.0.html

to help with resizing, so that images can be blown up properly from the thumbnail.

I suspect we might need to see more fine details to help you with this. 
It's certainly the sort of thing I've only really seen in museums, I'm not sure how far we'll get with tracking down the maker, but I am sure we can have a lot of discussion about it.
You can attach 4 images to each post you make - just click on the bit under the "browse box" to get another one.

[flying free]

I recall, in the recesses of my memory, reading about these being produced in great quantity in the 19th century in Bohemia.
They are I 'think' some form of perfume dispenser perhaps  - or at least that is what I've read.

updated - Lachrymatory is the word I was looking for - that is what I've seen them described as.


Whether or not that is what they were produced for I can't say as it's just something that's come up when I've been researching other things and I briefly read the info as I was curious about the gilding and enamelled decoration on them with reference something else.  I think sometimes they are sold as Turkish but I'm sure I read somewhere that they were produced in Bohemia.

Very pretty.
m

[flying free]

updated above

but this article says they are perfume bottles
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tearcatchers-victorian-myth-bottle

And whilst I've seen them sold as English/Turkish etc, I am very sure I've read they were produced in great quantity in Bohemia. 

[chopin-liszt]

Would a lachrymatory be a sort of reliquary thing?  Something for holding the "tears of some saint".

[flying free]

I think the lachrymatory bit was one of those 'glass myths' perhaps Sue.
I think they were produced as perfume bottles.

To the original poster - I am sure they were produced in Bohemia.  But at the moment I am 'off' glass and I don't have time to research where I read it.  I do think I read it in something contemporary to the 19th century though i.e. an original source rather than a speculative piece written more recently.

m

[chopin-liszt]

  That reliquaries actually contain what they are supposed to is also a bit of a myth.
Bits of saints were big business and all the ensuing skulduggery that goes along with that. 

[flying free]

  agreed

[chopin-liszt]

It was from that point of view that I wondered if the "saint's teardrop holder"  things didn't get made more often, (in the ancient days during the skulduggery) than saints' tears were collected...
Bigger images would be much appreciated, so we can see the details.