Silver smelling box in the
shape of a mouse holding a pearlesque ball in its paws, with
glass gem eyes, Tondern, pre-1822.
Aromatic Adornments, Amulets and Objets D'art at the
Annette Green Museum
By Albina de Meio
NEW YORK CITY - The Annette Green Museum at The Fragrance
Foundation is currently presenting its fifth exhibition, ":
Aromatic Adornments, Amulets & Objets d'art." Rarely viewed
treasures from the collections of exhibition sponsors Estée
Lauder and Tiffany & Co. will share the spotlight with
exquisite historic aromatic adornments and a unique, remarkably
inventive, yet seldom-examined jewelry genre expressly created
for holding precious scents.
The public has long regarded fragrance as a sensuous luxury and
fashion accessory. Today the roles of fragrance are becoming
increasingly influenced by the holistic appreciation of scent for
its importance in enhancing feelings of well being. History is
not only repeating itself but is the inspiration for the
exhibition.
In previous centuries, when both sanitation and personal hygiene
were in short supply, perfumes served vital purposes, combating
and camouflaging the malodorous air and deodorizing the skin.
Whether in paste or liquid form, these precious and volatile
scents required containers, not merely for storage and
safekeeping, but for keeping them close at hand.
Hence, the origin of aromatic jewelry, such as pomanders and
portable jeweled flacons (which appeared in the West in the
Eleventh Century), smelling boxes (Sixteenth Century),
vinaigrettes (Eighteenth Century), and glacés (Twentieth
Century). These historic containers took innumerable shapes --
apples, hearts, books and musical instruments among them, and
were typically designed to be carried on the body in the form of
necklaces, earrings, brooches, pendants, rings and even buttons,
hatpins and fans.
Buddha purse flacon by Van Cleef, United States, 1940s. Gold,
cabochon rubies. Lent by Ken Leach.
Beyond adornments, the early examples, in particular, were
regarded as amulets that were believed to have the power to
thwart misfortune and keep pestilence and malodors at bay. For
centuries, these jewelry containers, like the perfumes contained
inside them, were enjoyed by only a privileged few. From the
Eleventh Century into the Nineteenth Century, jewelers,
metalworkers and glass artisans created a range of scent
containers for the personal use of an exclusive clientele.
Monarchs, clergy and nobility were the only ones who could afford
either the perfume or its container. From early humble,
utilitarian vessels, these aromatic jewels evolved into creations
of ornate gold and silver and later molded and faceted glass,
porcelain, steel, brass, leather, horn and shell. Many were
encrusted with gems, and engraved or enameled with intricate or
fanciful motifs. The tiniest of these items, pomanders held in
the palm of the hand or dangled from a chatelaine at the waist,
acquired the status of protective amulets or charms, providing
the wearer with a sense of personal protection and empowerment.
They were credited, even when empty, with the power to ward off
evil.
As taste in scents evolved from heavy musk to pungent vinegar
waters and sweet floral essences, so did the jeweled vessels that
contained them. The earliest pomanders appeared in Germany, Italy
and France in the Eleventh Century. Gold and silver flacons were
produced throughout Europe following the introduction of Hungary
Water, the first alcohol-based perfume, in 1370.
Reaching a height of popularity in the Sixteenth Century, liquid
fragrances came to be carried in a new kind of flacon, made of
clear crystal. The novelty of viewing the perfume within these
transparent containers helped spur the growth of the glass
perfume bottle industry in Venice, Bohemia, Silesia, France and
England.
The aristocratic trends were reversed in the Eighteenth Century
when these vessels began to be produced in large numbers for an
enthusiastic general public who, after all, shared the same
olfactory needs as kings and royal retainers. Aromatic jewels
took a giant leap ahead in the Nineteenth Century. It was then
that these vessels became a commercial venture -- sold in greater
volume, at considerably lower prices, and with better
distribution and availability than ever before. Not only was
flacon production stepped up, but vinaigrettes, containing tiny
sponges soaked in pungent vinegar and ammonia-water, were
manufactured en masse, in metal, glass, horn, shell, wood and
other materials.
With the explosion of commercial perfumery in the early 1900s,
the volume of production rose to meet a steadily growing market.
Aromatic containers took a new direction as celebrated designers,
such as René Lalique, were commissioned to create stylish flacons
for Coty, D'Orsay and a host of other fragrance houses. Since the
1950s, pendant flacons and portable solid-perfume compacts have
evolved into affordably priced, often whimsical, novelty items.
Available at fragrance counters, they echo the forms and
functions of their historical forebears. At the same time, art
jewelers are inventing unique and precious fragrance containers
for those who take an avant-garde approach to personal adornment.
Whether exquisite or amusing, these remain first and foremost
functional gadgets designed to protect their volatile contents
behind a jeweled façade. Even more telling than their apparently
seamless exteriors -- where the hinge, cap and lid are often
disguised -- are their exquisitely engineered, mechanically
ingenious interiors that safeguard the fragrances confined
within. From a design point of view, it is the inner-outer
structure of these aromatic jewels that distinguishes them from
other forms of ornamentation. From the wearer's more personal
perspective, these interior spaces satisfy a basic human urge not
just to sniff a scent or smooth it onto the skin, but to keep a
reserve close at hand -- for the sake of comfort, protection or
enticement, to transform an intimate environment or recall a
beloved memory.
"" presents the evolution of metal, crystal, ivory and wood and
gem-laden jewels devised as perfume vessels, beginning in the
Seventeenth Century and continuing into the contemporary era.
Visitors to the exhibit will not only have the opportunity of
seeing the historical impact of fragrance on art and design, but
will also observe the objects' personalized functions and
intricate mechanical designs -- often albeit on a minuscule
scale. Some of the intricate items to be showcased are no larger
than a thimble or a thumb.
Among the early intricate examples on view is a silver and gilt
pomander that opens into six sections, each containing a
different aromatic substance, labeled in German: marjoram,
nutmeg, rosemary, citrus, thyme and ginger. Thought to be of
German origin, circa 1600, this piece is on loan from the
Cooper-Hewett, National Design Museum. Another of the early
scents is a pomander in the shape of a well-bitten apple core,
with a gold cap and base produced in Europe, circa 1750.
Tiffany & Co.
Taking the role of the arbiter of New World good taste, Tiffany
& Co. began offering ladies fine perfumes in its debut
catalog of 1845. Perfume bottles, vinaigrettes and chatelaines
were also part of its inventory. Then at midcentury, as the
United States economy entered its boom years, Tiffany & Co.
initiated annual buying trips to Paris. Its timing was perfect:
aristocrats fleeing the 1848 revolt against Louis Philippe were
unloading their diamonds on the market, and Tiffany & Co. had
the good fortune and ready cash to buy them at discount prices.
In 1850, Tiffany opened a branch on the Rue Richelieu, and in the
decades that followed the retailer became renown for its jewelry
designs.
In the late Nineteenth Century, Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the
founder, connected his family business with both the Arts and
Crafts and Art Nouveau movements. More artisan than shopkeeper,
he developed a unique type of iridescent glass (inspired by
excavated ancient Roman glass) named "Favrile" (referring to the
Latin word "faber," for craftsmanlike).
As seen in the "Tulip" and "Laurel Leaf" Art Nouveau flacons and
the Archaeological Revival-style "Patera" bottle, Favrile glass
is known for its surface luminosity and freely shaped forms.
He also revived and promoted a number of antique jewelry-making
techniques, such as guilloche enameling. Also seen in
"Laurel Leaf" is a technique that involves transparent enameling
that reveals a metal pattern engraved beneath. In most cases, the
cutting technique was executed on an engine-turning lathe that
produced a variety of patterns.
Another Tiffany & Co. specialty was electrotyping. This is
the electronic equivalent of casting -- a process in which silver
is electroplated into a mold (made from an old object or a new
prototype) until the desired thickness was achieved. Once
removed, the ornamental element could be soldered onto the body
of a silver object. As for entire objects, they were nearly
finished when they came out of the molds, since electrotyping was
capable of great detail. With electrotyping, Tiffany & Co.
was able to produce numerous Japanesque-style silver items, such
as the hand-hammered "Gourd Perfume Bottle and Chatelaine." In
addition, many Tiffany & Co. design drawings dating from the
1870s display details such as jagged-edged leaves, vertical fern
leaves and spiral stems that could only have been reproduced in
quantity with the use of electrotyping.
In the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, the Tiffany &
Co. repertoire expanded to include a wide array of traditional
and exotic artistic styles. Classical Revival and restrained
Louis XVI styles are evident in perfume bottle-vinaigrette
combinations such as the slender-necked "Amphora" and the "Louis
XVI" container, with its stylized leaf decoration. Orientalism
can be seen in the vase-shaped silver and gold chatelaine with
perfume bottle called "Nettie," with its Islamic-influenced leaf
and floral pattern. Arts and Crafts style and the newly emerging
Art Nouveau are blended in designs such as the "Wildflowers"
perfume bottle, made of lapis lazuli (excellent for perfumes,
with its thick, noncorrosive walls). Full-fledged Art Nouveau is
represented by the lead crystal "Lizard" and "Snake" perfume
bottles, each encrusted with gold, diamonds, garnets and rubies.
Eclectic Victoriana is also present in Tiffany & Co. aromatic
jewelry, most notably in the extravagant crystal "Heart" bottle
attached to a diamond ring. Design influences for the bottle come
from French cabinetmaking, in particular marquetry of the
mid-Eighteenth Century, where scrolling wave-like curves,
acanthus leaf borders and floral cornucopias were featured
ornamentation. The rock crystal "heart" flacon is suspended via
diamond and platinum-set gold chains from a diamond ring. The
gold cap, chased with flowers, butterflies and ribbons, is
further adorned with a basket of flowers, each one made of
rubies, and the top of the cap is mounted with a 1.28-carat
diamond.
Another highlight is an iridescent Tiffany Favrile glass perfume
bottle with a button-release cap whose top has a collet-set
diamond and whose neck is decorated with a rosettes floral motif,
displaying a gemstone in the center of each bud. Inspiration for
the oblong-shaped bottle with deep, vertical folds and hues of
purple, blue and yellow, may have come from William Morris's
"Tulip and Lily" carpet design of 1875.
Estée Lauder
In 1946, just as the GIs were settling back home and starting the
Baby Boom, Estée Lauder and her husband Joseph of Queens, N.Y.,
began a small cosmetics company, offering items like Cleansing
Oil and All Purpose Cream. In this postwar era, when American
women were eager for glamour and pampering as never before,
business thrived. But when it came to fragrances, in those early
days American women regarded them as special-occasion treats, the
bottles waiting on the dressing table, to be dabbed sparingly to
pulse points on Saturday nights.
Estée Lauder sought to change that. In 1953, she introduced Youth
Dew, and exotic oriental perfume in bath-oil form. Her hunch was
that her customers would buy a scented bath product without
guilt, the way they bought cosmetics. She was right. Youth Dew
became a favorite American fragrance, and an all-occasion one at
that.
In 1967, the company entered solid perfume glacé manufacturing
with the Youth Dew Golden Rope Compact, containing perfume oil in
a solid, alcohol-free base. This novelty accessory paved the way
for hundreds of seasonal glacé designs, still available in
limited edition production. Beyond their gift-giving prowess and
portable practicality, Estée Lauder glacés have been a major
force in the democratization of aromatic jewelry. Not only do
they recall the venerable pomander, with its precious
solid-perfume contents, but many of these items quote from
historic designs: Regency cameos, Victorian hearts, Battersea
boxes, netsuke ivories. Other figurals display approachably
whimsical subjects: a circus tent, a juggling seal, teddy bears,
a jack-in-box and playful kittens.
Visitors to "" will also have the opportunity for a rare glimpse
of trompe l'oeil box presentations. Uncommon even in their heyday
(the 1920s and 1930s), these are artful arrangements of miniature
perfume bottles that, when fitted into a specially designed
display box, resemble bracelets, rings, earrings and necklaces.
The most striking of these items is a singular strand of
graduated perfume flacon "pearls," whose iridescence comes from
herring extract.
"Heart" perfume bottle and diamond ring, circa 1896. Rock
crystal, platinum, diamonds, rubies and gold. Lent by Tiffany
& Co. archives.
Many of the essences representative of the favorite scents from
throughout the centuries, Middle Ages to the present, will
tantalize the olfactory imagination of visitors in the
exhibition's unique Smelling Scenter sponsored by Drom
International.
The exhibition, spanning five centuries, will feature jeweled
treasures from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Estée
Lauder Inc Archives, Tiffany & Co. Archives, and Drom
Fragrances International, as well as from major collectors and
art dealers nationwide and the Annette Green Museum's private
collection. The exhibition will also feature the work of
contemporary art jewelers such as Mikala Naur, Eva Eisler, Biba
Schutz and Kiwon Wang, as well as a singular neck piece from the
Seattle glass artist Ginny Ruffner.
Linda Dyett, the organizing curator for "," is the co-author of
Secrets of Aromatic Jewelry with Annette Green, president
of The Fragrance Foundation and the Annette Green Museum. Dorothy
Globus, who organized the exhibition space for "," formerly
served as museum director at the Fashion Institute of Technology
(FIT) and as curator of exhibitions at the Cooper-Hewitt,
National Museum of Design. Albina De Meio is the exhibition
coordinator. She is an adjunct assistant professor, School of
Graduate Studies at FIT and former administrator for Exhibitions
and Collections, The New-York Historical Society.
"" is sponsored by Arcade Marketing, Tiffany & Co., Estée
Lauder and The Condé Nast Publications; supporters include Quest
International and Bormioli Rocco.
The exhibition runs through September 27. The Annette Green
Museum is at 145 East 32nd Street, 9th floor, and is open to the
public through Labor Day, Monday to Thursday, 10 am to noon, and
1 to 4 pm. Entrance fee for nonmembers is $5. Museum memberships
are available. Established in November 1999, the nonprofit
Annette Green Museum at The Fragrance Foundation is the first and
only fragrance museum in the United States. For information,
212-725-2755 or www.fragrance.org.
