Italian Leather Decanter Dark Brown Fleur de Lis Applied Motifs Ball Stopper

The technique is called cuoio, and Florence has been doing it since the Renaissance. A glass bottle is the core. Leather is soaked, stretched over it wet, hand stitched down the seams, then tooled and dyed while still damp so it dries onto the glass and never comes off. The bottle inside is ordinary. Everything you are looking at is the skin. This one is finished in a deep oxblood brown with panels of a paler tan let in at the shoulder and applied fleur de lis motifs at four points around the body. The neck is bound in fine plaited leather cord, and the stopper is a leather covered wooden ball with its original cork underneath, which is the part that goes missing first on every single one of these. These came home in suitcases. They were the thing an American bought in Florence in 1960 because it was handsome, unbreakable in luggage, and unmistakably from somewhere. Half a century later the leather has darkened where hands held it and stayed pale where it sat against a shelf, which is a record of use you cannot manufacture. It holds liquid. Most people use them empty. Condition: Used. Leather sound with no splits and no lifting at the seams. All applied motifs present. Original leather covered ball stopper with cork. Honest colour variation from handling and light. Interior glass clean. Ships from Baltimore via FedEx within the stated handling time. Flat rate shipping by size. Combined shipping on multiple items. Returns accepted for 30 days. Ten percent of every sale g