THE DEMIJOHN PAGE
Page 5 - Gallery
Demijohn 31 - Black glass, seventeen inches tall. Sheared lip, applied string. Smooth base. Dip mold blown. Continental, early 19th Century.
Demijohn 32 - Flattened apple form in olive-green glass. Twenty-one inches tall in the stout, furniture-grade wicker. Lip is crude, scalloped in the making. Origin unknown, 19th century.
< Demijohn 33 - Black (olive-amber) glass, tapered cylinder, 19 inches tall, dip mold blown, smooth base, sheared lip with applied string rim, French, mid-1800s. This seems to be a "salmanazar" bottle with a capacity of 12 standard Burgundy or Champagne bottles, that is, 9.36 liters. (ref.: Van den Bossche, page 205, Plate 153.)
Demijohn 35 - A pewter saltshaker, 3.25" tall, produced in 1888 by the Meriden Silver Plate Company. The 'cork' unscrews for filling. v
Demijohn 34 - Colorless glass, figural cologne bottle. Rolled lip, blow-pipe pontil scar. 2.84" inches tall. American, circa 1850.
Demijohn 36 - Cylinder in olive-green glass, 17.5 inches tall, glass pontil scar. Blown in a three-piece mold. German, second half of the 19th century.
This is one of those exceptions when a demijohn can be attributed to a glassworks. When the bottle was acquired, a metal tag came with it (see image). The tag, a metal strip, is stamped GEBRUDER STOEVESANDT / SHUTZ MARKE BREMEN with a triangle inclosing a wickered demijohn and the letters "G" and "S" or, translated from German, "BROTHERS STOEVESANDT / TRADE MARK BREMEN"
From 1845, Brothers Hermann and Henry Stoevesandt operated a glassworks in the industrial center of Bremen, northern Germany. By 1898, their glassworks had a rated capacity to produce 12,000,000 bottles, 400,000 demijohns, and 100,000 stoneware jugs per year - all hand-made! The works had 600 employees, one of the principal industries of Bremen at the time. Bremen is an inland seaport via the Wesel River, and many of these bottles were exported empty to other parts of the world. Gebruder Stoevesandt is still in operation, a subsidiary of Owens-Illinois Group International. v >
Same logo (on paper)from the 1950s
< Demijohn 37 - Olive-green cylinder, free-blown, disk lip, blowpipe ('open') pontil scar. About 13.5 inches tall. American, circa 1780 -1800.
Demijohn 38 - Olive-green ovoid, 16 inches tall (ten liters), blown in a 3-piece mold, no pontil scar in a pronounced kickup. Continental, second half of the 19th century. >
Happy flea-market bottle hunter
