Loetz miniatures: for Liberties, Boldoot, and probably others?

Here is a small selection of Loetz miniatures.

Not surprisingly many people seem to be fascinated by Loetz miniatures, c1903 they are cute and, as they take up so little space; easy to collect.

To quote from Alfredo’s wonderful website they are 'miniature vases under 2.5 inches tall' technically they are 'vinaigrettes; ie small perfume bottles' and usually found in 'Silberiris or Papillon finishes'. They are also usually associated with Liberties of London and, I think, it’s also been suggested they were sold as perfume samplers/testers. They almost always come as simple glass vessels – plus, if you are very lucky their original cork stoppers (as sold in Liberties), but just sometimes they are seen with small metal sprinkler tops.

Pic 1 shows a typical ‘Liberty style’ cobalt papillon Loetz miniature

Pic 2 shows a candia papillon and a cobalt papillon miniature both with the unusual metal tops (apologies for the bad picture –all I have at the moment)

Pic3 shows a third kind, almost certainly still Loetz, but more of a chine finish, slightly taller with a top that doesn’t look like it ever was meant to have a stopper - this is a complete mystery.

Put together, perhaps this is one mystery solved (those in picture 2) and a mystery still unsolved (picture 3).

I’m not sure if this has been documented before, but the two miniatures in the centre both have what scent bottle collectors call ‘crown top sprinklers’ they have a screw top that does not fully unscrew –when tight they are sealed, when loose they enable the vessels contents to be sprinkled. More interestingly one of the tops is clearly marked 'J C Boldoot Amsterdam' a major Dutch perfume and cosmetics company. If you research their wares they often used a variety of ‘crown top sprinklers’ -marked and unmarked, so I suspect they are both for Boldoot.

I guess if Liberties used them and J C Boldoot, then others did too.

As to the remaining mystery of the last picture, I think it’s not a perfume sampler –but I’ve no idea what else it could be.