Antique French Opaline Uranium Perfume Bottle, napoleon III Period

Small pear-shaped perfume bottle called “du Palais-Royal” in opaque chrysoprase green opaline. It is encased in a delicate chiseled and formerly gilded bronze frame including a scalloped collar with openwork egg motifs enclosing the upper bulb, and a cage of stylized foliage scrolls hugging the domed base. The neck receives a miniature hinged cap decorated with a gadrooned corolla collar.
France. Napoleon III period (19th century, circa 1850-1860).
Height: 6.5 cm
The so-called “Palais-Royal” objects take their name from the luxurious boutiques located under the arcades of the Palais-Royal in Paris, a mecca for prestigious commerce at the beginning of the 19th century. If this style of bronze cage bottles was born under the Restoration, its popularity continued and fully flourished under the Second Empire. Chrysoprase green opaline, whose luminous shade imitating hard stones is obtained thanks to uranium oxides, remains extremely popular with the bourgeoisie of the Napoleon III era. Enhanced by the contrast of a chiseled bronze frame forming a true piece of miniature goldwork, this type of precious bottle was integrated into the heart of elaborate travel kits or adorned the most refined dressing tables.
Our object is part of the tradition of high-school bottleware and Parisian boudoir items of the 19th century, offering a magnificent example of the persistence of the taste for rare opalines with stylish frames under the Second Empire.