pair of charles x blue perfume bottles in opal crystal

A pair of perfume bottles in blue opal crystal with their flattened corks. The mounts in gilded bronze are finely chiseled with foliage, friezes of pearls and twisted patterns. The crystal presents different shades of blue, lighter at the top and darker toward the base.

ln the 19th century the production of French crystal is in the hands of four crystal glassworks:The Royal Glassware of St. Louis, founded in 1767 at Muntzthal, was the first one to discover, by sending observers in England, the secrets of the crystal. Since then, St. Louis specialized itself in the luxury glassware and held an interest for the opal crystal.The name of Baccarat crystal represents the production of three factories. The first one, Voneche was founded in 1778 near Liège, and was bought in 1802 by Aimé-Gabriel d'Artigues, nephew of the director of St. Louis. When the treaties of 1815 took away Voneche of the French territory, Artigues bought the St. Anne glassware near Baccarat. Then in 1822 the Baccarat crystal glassware absorbed Trelon in the north which produced at that time only window glass. The man who gave rise to the Baccarat crystals was a scholar, a glass technician, as well as a very good administrator: J-B Toussaint. Until his death in 1858, he gave a hard life to the competition in France and abroad.Among those competitors, the factory at Le Creusot benefited of the government support in order to find the secret of the colored crystals from England. The factory at Le Creusot, also called Montcenis was a resurgence of the Queen manufacture funded in Sèvres in 1783 by Lambert and Boyer. Following a mismanagement of the factory, the government decided in 1785 the transfer of the factory at Le Creusot. Despite some successes including the yellow and turquoise opal crystal, le Creusot fell into financial difficulties and in 1832. Baccarat and St. Louis came together, bought the factory and switch off the ovens.Two other factories were founded under the Restauration: Choisy-le-Roi in 1821 and Bercy in 1827. In 1832, a commercial agreement between Baccarat and St. Louis was extended to the manufactures of Choisy-le-Roi and Bercy, which had shown their qualities thanks to an excellent production.
Bibliography: Vincendeau, Christine, Les Opalines, Les Editions de l'Amateur, 1998, pp. 79-146.  
Circa :1820
Dim: W: 3,9 in - D: 3,9in - H: 4,9in.
Dim: L:10cm, P:10cm, H:12,5cm.

Antiques.co.uk Ref: AGGYUHR6

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