Blue-colored flacon de poche decorated with fleur de lys and hearts

Glasshouse of Bernard Perrot, Verrerie Royale d'Orléans

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This scent bottle (flacon) and a related one (see 83.7.165) were made in the Orléans glasshouse of Bernard Perrot (active from 1649 to 1709), the most famous member of an Italian glassmaking family that probably went to France as followers of Louis Gonzaga. The flacons are examples of one of his inventions, the use of patterned molds with intaglio decoration to cast molten glass into small bottles, beakers, medallions, and vials and then displayed the motifs in relief. Both flacons are cast from the same mold. Perrot specialized in colored glass, producing agate bodies, imitation porcelain in white glass, and a transparent red glass. The three fleurs-de-lis may indicate that this was a glasshouse within royal protection, and the hearts were probably a reference to the vials given as courting gifts.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art