Bottle Ticket thumbnail 1
Not on display

Bottle Ticket

1877-1878 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Bottle tickets identified the contents of a bottle or decanter, which might alternatively contain spirits, sauces, toilet waters or cordials. This silver ticket is engraved with an unidentified crest and hangs by a ring rather than a chain. It identifies the contents as sherry, a fortified wine from Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain.

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. While the variety of styles and materials was enormous, silver bottle tickets tended to reflect fashionable designs and technical advances in metalware generally.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Silver, engraved
Brief description
Silver, London hallmarks for 1877-8, mark of Robert Hennell & Sons.
Physical description
Bottle ticket with the word SHERRY. Silver, rectangular with hat shaped projection at the top, the whole with feathered edges and a ring attached; the lettering, voided.
Dimensions
  • Height: 1.5in
  • Length: 2.25in
  • Ring diameter: 2.5in
Marks and inscriptions
  • Mark of RH for Robert Hennell & Sons
  • London hallmarks for 1877-8
  • Engraved with a crest ( agrey hound's head erased, collared with a ducal coronet and holding in its mouth a key in pale, the wards in base) Unidentified.
  • SHERRY
Credit line
P. J. Cropper Bequest
Subject depicted
Summary
Bottle tickets identified the contents of a bottle or decanter, which might alternatively contain spirits, sauces, toilet waters or cordials. This silver ticket is engraved with an unidentified crest and hangs by a ring rather than a chain. It identifies the contents as sherry, a fortified wine from Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain.

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. While the variety of styles and materials was enormous, silver bottle tickets tended to reflect fashionable designs and technical advances in metalware generally.
Collection
Accession number
M.37-1944

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Record createdFebruary 16, 2005
Record URL
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