Rare opaline “gorge de pigeon scent bottle in form of a horn. The elaborate Arabesque/Persian design is the work of Oscar Pierre Erard created with gold paste and enamel with applied cabochon glass stones of turquoise, moonstone, sapphire and coral.
It is fitted with a silver mount, hinged cover chased with flowers leaves fully hallmarked for London, 1885, H.T.B for Brockwell & Son (Henry Titterton Brockwell) Hallmarks Registered – October 1875 Office – Brooke Street London.
Erard, a contemporary of his better-known countryman Jules Barbe – Thomas Webb’s chief designer from 1879 to 1900 – is thought to have left a politically unstable France, where he was born in 1853, for the West Midlands sometime in the 1880s. He started to work for Steven and Williams in 1885 “with his French influence, was to fire the starting gunfor the enamelling and gilding shop at Moor Lane Glass Works”. The Erard first pattern in the records dates 1884 and it has enamels of Arabian, Chinese and Japanese design, but unfortunatly none of his work is signed. Erard was also a master in the “Nuancé”, name given to the cased shaded glass where the colour “die away” on an opal background.
