Double ended perfume bottle

Brass capped ruby red double ended perfume bottle.
These bottles were meant to hold perfume at one end, smelling salts or a vinaigrette at the other. The bottles were made by welding two separate bottles together, then giving the finished bottle polishing and cutting either in simple panels or elaborate designs. Very rarely will you find a hidden compartment in the middle of the bottles, this hinged compartment would have held a vinaigrette. The bottles first appeared in the late 1700s, but it wasn’t until the 1850s that they were in general use. Their popularity waned around 1875 but continued to be manufactured until the turn of the century.