Label for bottle

Label for bottle A bottle label from the collection of the Potoccy family, made of silver, from the end of the 19th/ beginning of the 20th century. The label is to be hanged on a bottle or carafe and indicate the type of spirit. The label is shaped as a convex rectangle, is made of profiled frames with a piece of cardboard in the centre, with the handwritten indication „Whisky”. The frame corners are decorated with wolf heads, from the mouths of which garlands of laurel leaves with fruit protrude. The upper portion of the frame is decorated by volutes and a palmette, and two ears hold a small chain, for hanging. Such labels were used for bottles, carafes, to indicate the spirit poured from original, frequently moss-covered old bottles. Such labels emerged around the year 1740 as items simplifying the identification of new wine types that gradually entered the market. They were suspended from bottle necks on silver chains. The labels from halfway through the 19th century only carried the initials of the wine. Save for cast labels from the regency period, the most were embossed. Inscribed labels (from the Museum collection) are related by their shape to the regency, and, characteristically, include a “window” that was used to hold a sheet of paper with the name of the alcohol. Most labels indicate the purpose, the majority were hanged on carafes. Beside silver labels, galvanically silver-coated and emailed labels were also made. The labels disappeared when the custom emerged to fix paper labels onto bottles. An interesting fact to note is that smaller labels also existed, hung on sauce bottles.