Description:
One of three blown, cobalt-blue lead glass decanters with a mallet-shaped body with rounded shoulders, short neck, tooled lip, and polished pontil mark. The side of the bottle is decorated with a gilt simluated wine label with canted corners and "HOLLANDS" in block capital letters, which is hanging by a double chain from a bowknot at the neck ring. The flat, tear-shaped stopper has bevel-cut edges and a cylindrical plug, and is decorated with gilt band around the edges and a gilt "H" in the center. Both the decanter and its gilt decoration and simulated wine label are typical of the late 18th-early 19th century. According to Arlene Palmer, there are few references to blue glass in colonial American sources in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but colored glass did not come into general use until the 1770s. In 1775, New York importer George Ball advertised "Blue quart decanters for port or claret, cut bottoms and tops," and James and Arthur Jarvis advertised "blue and white soy cruets and stands with gilt labels" in 1771. During this period, decanters and condiment bottles had the same shape, with both forms often sold in sets with the bottles placed in frames that ranged from leather-covered tin, such as this example, to sterling silver. Colored glass is traditionally associated with Bristol even though it was manufactured throughout England. The Bristol City Art Gallery has a similar stand and bottles that are inscribed on the base "I. Jacobs / Bristol." Hollands, brandy, and rum were the most commonly named spirits on this type of decanter. Hollands geneva, the contemporary term for gin from the Netherlands, was distilled from grain and flavored with juniper berries; 'gin' is a corruption of "genievre," the French word for juniper berry. The American Mercury (Hartford, Connecticut), November 12, 1787, listed "labelled decanters of suitable sizes."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+54.070.2 |
