Category Archives: Perfume Bottles

Vintage Perfumes: A Photo for Black Friday

24 Friday Nov 2017

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It’s Black Friday—are you out shopping? I might be doing a little online shopping for scented treats later today.

I just wanted to share this glamorous photograph from VOGUE, dated December 15, 1934 (the middle of the Great Depression, no less!). The photographers were Peter Nyholm and John Phillips and the image was titled “A Collection of Christmas Gifts.”

I can see perfumes and other fragranced indulgences from Chanel, Guerlain (Jicky soap!), Millot, Lucien LeLong, Jean Patou, Lenthéric, Molinelle, Weil, Richard Hudnut, and others. Something for everyone on even the fanciest Christmas list of 1934!

Just Because: An Archaic Perfume Bottle

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

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archaicfootperfumebottle

This small terracotta bottle dates to the mid-6th century B.C.E. and was made on the Greek island of Rhodes. It originally would have held some oil-based perfume. I’m thinking a lot about feet and ankles right now, so I just wanted to share this humorous ancient item.

Enjoy your day and watch your step!

Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art, terracotta aryballos (perfume vase) in the form of a sandaled right foot, 24.97.4

 

Five Perfumes to Wear for an Eclipse

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Advertising and Scent, Perfume Bottles

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On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will be visible from North America. I’m hoping to step outside to watch the moon pass the sun for a few minutes, even if I’m only getting a partial view in New York City. I just need to make a pinhole viewer out of a cereal box first!

Important consideration, though: what fragrance to wear for this once-in-lifetime occurrence? Here are five suggestions…

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Perfume and Art: Audrey Flack, “Jolie Madame” (1973)

03 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Art and Scent, Perfume Bottles

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I’ve never had a chance to do any “official” research on Audrey Flack’s work, but I’ve been a fan of her photorealist still-life paintings for a long time. Here’s one titled Jolie Madame, dated 1973. (It belongs to the National Gallery of Australia.)

Flack (b. 1931) is known for her contemporary reinterpretations of vanitas images—still-life compositions that symbolically evoke mortality and the “vanity” of earthly pleasures…

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Bastille Day!

14 Friday Jul 2017

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Here’s an ad for Marianne, “the perfume of the bicentennial.” It was released in 1988 for the anniversary of the French Revolution, and its bottle is a stylized bust of Marianne, the embodiment of the French Republic, a personification of freedom and reason. (She sports a “Phrygian cap,” a hat worn in the ancient Roman Empire by former slaves who were freed by their masters and thus attained liberty and citizenship.)

I’ve never seen (or smelled) this fragrance in person, but its ad seems appropriate for Bastille Day. Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

Image via H-Prints.