Perfume Bottle
Dublin Core
Title
Perfume Bottle
Subject
Women
California
19th Century
Perfume
Ambergris
California
19th Century
Perfume
Ambergris
Description
A deep purple glass bottle with an engraved patterned silver screw-on cap which would have been used to hold perfume. This object may have been in circa around 1830 to 1840. The size of the bottle is 9” wide and 5” deep. The perfume used would have contained the secretion from sperm whales from the Pacific Coast with produced ambergris. This gave a perfume its scent. The perfume would then be refined in the US or Europe and then sent back to the Cape Horn to be purchased by those in California. Coloured glass was very highly valued within the early 1800s, even more so with the silver cap shown here.
Creator
Unknown - Gift from Miss Elizabeth Makins
Publisher
Oakland Museum of California
http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/h232356i
[Date Accessed - 12/11/17]
http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/h232356i
[Date Accessed - 12/11/17]
Date
1890
Contributor
Freya Harper
Rights
Oakland Museum of California
http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/h232356i
[Date Accessed - 12/11/17]
http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/h232356i
[Date Accessed - 12/11/17]
Language
N/A
Type
Material Object
Identifier
19th century California
Files
Collection
Citation
Unknown - Gift from Miss Elizabeth Makins, “Perfume Bottle,” The American Pacific Rim: Colonisation, Conflict and Connections, 1800-Present, accessed May 10, 2024, https://theamericanpacificrim.omeka.net/items/show/159.