Bottle ticket
- Place of origin:
London, England (made)
- Date:
1805-1806 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Garrard, Robert (I), born 1758 - died 1818 (maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Silver
- Credit Line:
Given by J. H. Fitzhenry
- Museum number:
1250-1903
- Gallery location:
Silver, room 67, case 4, shelf 7
'Hermitage' is a French wine, either red or white, from the Rhone valley. Bottle tickets identified the contents of a bottle or decanter, which might alternatively contain spirits, sauces, toilet waters or cordials. Contemporary gazettes begin to refer to ‘labels for bottles’ in the 1770s but it was not until the 1790s that they were established as wine or decanter labels.
These tickets also illustrate in miniature the skills of the silversmith over the last two hundred years. Robert Garrard I (1760-1818), a well-known London silversmith, made this example. While the variety of styles and materials was enormous, silver bottle tickets tended to reflect the fashionable designs and technical advances in metalware generally.
