Saturday, November 2, 2013

Borgia by Rosine c1914

Borgia by Rosine: launched in 1914. Named after Lucretia Borgia. All inspired by history, partially proven, the Borgia family, which gave two Popes in the Catholic religion. The latter under the name of Alexander VI at the end of intrigue was marked by the aggrandizement of the Pope, by a bloodthirsty cruelty unparalleled and debauchery that was not less. The family became notorious for alleged incest and violent deaths inflicted on their enemies by poisoning. He had four children, including the famous Lucrezia.









Fragrance Composition:


So what does it smell like? A perfume of mystery. It was a floral woody fragrance for women. It's composition was based on scent of the geranium leaf. Taking various geranium perfume formulas of the period into consideration, the composition might have looked something like the following:
  • Top notes: galbanum, cassie, rose geranium, bergamot
  • Middle notes: geranium leaf, rose, jasmine, orris
  • Base notes: balsam, tree mastic, storax, sandalwood, ambergris, patchouli, benzoin, vetiver, civet, musk

Advertisement in the Rosine catalog says that "one drop drives you crazy."


Poiret commissioned his friend Roger Boutet de Monvel to create a poem for the perfume. Boutet de Monvel wrote: Borgia:
"Long ago, under the reign of Pope Alexander, knights would fill the bezel of their rings with it, and one knows how Don Ottario seduced Julie, the tenderhearted. At the time of his daughter's wedding, it is said that Cardinal Rodriguez spilled plenty of dragees into the bodices of the Roman ladies, and that these innocent sweets threw the noble guests into extreme turmoil. Lastly, it is said that, his mind full of the grandest intentions, Cezar Borgia himself could not cease rolling around his fingers a gold ball filled with a little bit of the magnificent elixir. Bewitching potion, legendary perfume! No one would unveil then your mysterious origins? Were you born in Verona or in Capua, in the den of a courtesan of Venice, or at the witches' lair in Sicily? Yet, pure, priceless, your formula came down to us, your aroma still with all its eloquent power, and one knows your fearsome hold, because from you, irresistible perfume, a single drop with bring complete madness."


St Louis Dispatch, 1934:
"I wanted to extract from the leaves of certain plants perfumes that people up to then had only sought in flowers and roots. I amused myself working with the geranium leaf, out of which I made Borgia perfume, and then I used the mastic tree and certain balsams from Provencal heaths. I asked glassmakers to make bottles I designed to contain these essences. I then had this glassware decorated by pupils in my school of decorative art, who illuminated them with flowers and charming arabesques.-Paul Poiret"


Pan, 1920:
"Still feeling in need of comfort, I went to buy some scent, for a really good perfume, as you know, acts like a balm to the soul, a pick me up to jaded nerves, and is truly worth a guinea a drop, and if you are anything like me, you will not be content to run one special perfume for any length of time, but demand a different scent for every day, for every mood, for every frock, and in Poiret's Rosine creations you can satisfy every need. The bottles are quaintly devised - the scents adorably named. 
I tried to decide between "Forbidden Fruit" (the bottle shaped to resemble a golden apple) and smelling like all the orchards in Kent, and slender, gold-flecked exquisitely hand-painted with birds and fishes, containing a spray like the scented mist that clothes that newly awakened dawn; but I eventually carried off "Pierrot," a dainty conceit of frosted glass, with a black stopper, and an impudent-looking Toby-frill round its neck, and a perfume that suggested dimity and apple blossom and a pure and blameless life) so appropriate, you know). 
I loved " Borgia," a dreamy, languorous scent and, best of all, the bright little Rosine powder- boxes in their gay coats of flowered chintz." 

 


Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels ... - Page 78, 1925:
Borgia "with a single drop it makes one mad, they say, and with the green and red badge on the side of the black case, there appears a viper with a tongue of fire." Each vial of Rosine, explained Nozière, "is a work of art made ​​long to be admired.

Week end: comédie en trois actes - Page 10, 1928:
"Simon (catching her hand and kissing it): "You smell heavenly. What a strange and deep fragrance! What is it?"
Myra. - "Borgia of Rosine"
Simon. - "How appropriate. Borgia! As it suits you!" (He pulls her down and kisses her.)
Myra. - (breaking away)"You're too exuberant today, Simon."

Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 610, 1948:
"BORGIA. Registered July 3, 1928. Les Parfums de Rosine, Inc. Renewed July 3, 1948, to Renoir Parfums, Ltd., New York, N. Y., a corporation of New York. TOILET ARTICLES — NAMELY, FACE LOTIONS, FACE CREAMS, FACE POWDERS"



Bottle:

The bottle, designed by Georges Dumoulin and produced by the Depinoix glassworks, symbolizes a vial of poison, the bottle is made up of black opaque glass dappled with real gold dust inclusions in the glass, called "floating gold". This technique was achieved by sprinkling gold dust into the mold while the glass was still in fusion which resulted in producing bottles with unique patterns of glittering gold specks. The flacon is fitted with a gilded black ribbed glass stopper and the name Borgia was horizontally painted in gold on the front of the bottle.

The packaging is made up of a cylindrical box with a pointed top. The box was covered in black paper decorated with a scarlet red and gold shield containing the motif of a spitting, curled venomous snake, representing poison. The bottle stands: 3.8" tall.

Other glassworks such as Baccarat and d'Argenteuil created these gold dust bottles. For instance, Dumoulin revived this technique for the perfume Miracle by Lentheric in 1924, bottles were made both by Baccarat and Depinoix. A black and gold dust bottle was made for the perfume Pepites d'Or by Studia by d'Argenteuil in 1925. The technique was also used for the perfume Cime D'Or by Maubert in 1927.


photo by Neret-Tessier






Eau de Toilette flacon






Fate of the Fragrance:


Discontinued, date unknown. Still being sold in 1930.


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