$275.00
Art Nouveau DeVilbiss perfume atomiser. Hand painted white & red enamel flowers on Purple glass. Beautiful condition. Signed.
Height:18cm
The popularity of perfume atomizers skyrocketed after World War I, with soldiers returning from France with perfume for sweethearts at home. This coincided with the spectacular rise in America of prosperity and opulence known as the “Roaring Twenties”.
Dr. Allan DeVilbiss, a medical doctor specializing in nose and throat medicine, founded the DeVilbiss Manufacturing Company in Toledo, Ohio in 1888. The company’s primary purpose was to manufacture and sell DeVilbiss-invented spray atomizers, designed to apply soothing medicinal coatings to patients’ throats. His son Tom joined the company in 1905, and by 1907 had convinced his father to go into the perfume atomizer business. Over its history, DeVilbiss relied on the highest quality American and European glass manufacturers for its bottles. Some bottles were acquired without decoration and then finished with acid treatments, enameling and engraving by DeVilbiss’ own decorating department. Others were purchased with the glassmaker’s already-applied decorations, such as bottles with Cambridge Glass Company etchings. Some bottles were made to a DeVilbiss design specification, while others were acquired in shapes already being manufactured by the glassmaker. DeVilbiss Perfume Bottles identify the glass manufacturer whenever records exist or the shape or style has a known source. In all, DeVilbiss acquired glass and porcelain bottle blanks from at least 60 different suppliers from America, Europe and Japan over the course of its 71-year history.
Perfume atomizer production was finally terminated, after 71 years, in 1968.