Ovoid bottle with long neck, covered by a small cover. Painted on the front, a man and woman kissing. Inscribed: 'A. capillor' ue'.

Ovoid bottle with long neck, covered by a small domed cover with finial. Painted in blue, yellow, brownish orange, and copper green.

Provenance

Ralph Bernal (1783-1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian religion at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour.

In 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded compensation of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal's collecting.

When Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for 'the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge' (Christie and Manson, 1855). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer.

This bottle was used for storing liquid drugs. It would have been part of a set of similar bottles for different drugs, belonging to a pharmacy.
Maidenhair (Adiantum capillus-veneris ) is a small, hardy fern with an aromatic, lily-like fragrance. It can be found throughout southern Europe and the Atlantic coast as far north as Ireland. The dried fronds, sometimes with roots attached, are the medicinal part of the plant. Since the Middle Ages, it was taken as an infusion for various diseases of the respiratory tract, as a syrup for coughs, and as a rinse to treat thinning hair and promote healthy skin tone.

This bottle was used for storing liquid drugs. It would have been part of a set of similar bottles for different drugs, belonging to a pharmacy.
Maidenhair (Adiantum capillus-veneris ) is a small, hardy fern with an aromatic, lily-like fragrance. It can be found throughout southern Europe and the Atlantic coast as far north as Ireland. The dried fronds, sometimes with roots attached, are the medicinal part of the plant. Since the Middle Ages, it was taken as an infusion for various diseases of the respiratory tract, as a syrup for coughs, and as a rinse to treat thinning hair and promote healthy skin tone.
This type of bottle was typical for the workshop of Orazio Pompei and his extended family in Castelli (active ca. 1510/20-after 1590). Most of the jars and bottles made there have depictions of men and/or women in comtemporary dress.

1798A-1855