Hidden Treasures

 Today I had a meeting at my youngest daughter’s school which, for reasons I won’t bore you with, I wasn’t looking forward to.  Unusually for me, I arrived early so went into a local dépot vente (loosely translated, junk shop) to kill some time.  Look what I found!

Some gorgeous, wicker and jute wrapped old demijohns.  Apparently, the big old glass bottles were used to transport wine, olive oil and other liquid produce and the wicker wrapping protected the glass inside.

I must admit, I’d never given a thought to the beautiful old glass inside before but, when I started to research them, I found some  photographs where they have used the ones from which the wicker covering has perished to make eyecatching displays.

I can see that a couple of mine are a beautiful turquoise blue colour but the wicker covering is in such good condition I don’t want to remove it so I’ll wait and see if I can find a more knackered one that I don’t mind stripping down.

If you want to know more about these old bottles which are becoming beloved of home designers, just click on the image above and it will take you to a page from Antique  Bottle  and Glass Collector Magazine (who knew?) and an interesting article  which goes into more  detail. 

I might put a couple in my vintage shop – as there is a limit to how many of my finds Mr. Tialys will countenance me keeping, as you know.  I’ll have to check on shipping but I guess the wicker will protect them very well as they used to bump along in carts on unmade roads and below decks in stormy seas at one time without coming to any harm.