Rare Rene Lalique Galeries Lafayette La Feuillaison Perfume Bottle – 82694 Updated 7-4-21 to delete link to Ebay listing that no longer works.
You know when you see a listing like the one at the above link; the seller usually has some knowledge on some level. After all the bottle is not signed for Rene Lalique, nothing on the bottle or label would point you to Rene Lalique, and there is no authoritative documentation of any kind that would back-up the false claim that Rene Lalique had anything to do with this bottle. Yet the seller proudly claims out of thin air* “…..made for Galeries Lafayette by Rene Lalique.” Starting off the listing title with the word “Rare” is just icing on the claim cake.
Sure enough when questioned, the seller pointed to the Utts’ groundbreaking 1990 book Lalique Perfume Bottles as the source of the information to back up the Rene Lalique claim, including a specific page number that made this an R. Lalique bottle.
Answer
“We found it on Lalique Perfume Bottles by Mary Lou and Glenn Utt page 137 and also if you google it you’ll find some people who have their own sites specializing on Lalique bottles, no one has it and or are looking for it.”
Of course the Utts’ book doesn’t say this bottle is R. Lalique. It’s a pretty good looking bottle that has value on its own, but it’s obviously not R. Lalique. The bottle in the listing is nowhere to be found in the Utts’ book. However, the actual R. Lalique Perfume Bottle for Galeries Lafayette La Feuillaison** is pictured and described on Page 24 of their book with the original label still in place.
Here’s a link to an actual R. Lalique La Feuillaison Perfume Bottle on the website that is the same as the bottle documented in the Utts’ book.
Obviously the Ebay bottle is just an unsigned*** bottle Coty supplied to the store with the perfume.**** The bottle has nothing to do with Rene Lalique. The EBay seller is stumptownusa.
Post Publication Update: At the time we posted this article, the seller had one bid at the starting price of $298. That bid was revoked. When the listing expired the seller removed the “Rare Rene Lalique” start of the title, and also removed “by Rene Lalique” from the description, and re-listed the bottle. End Of Update.
*Out of thin air from https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+thin+air “Out of nowhere; out of nothing.” And also “Auster spins stories out of thin air.” Our Note: The opposite meaning is also in use today as in “vanished into thin air”. The first known use of the phrase “into thin air” and what got the whole thin air thing started was in 1610 in the Shakespeare play The Tempest. There we hear Prosepro say: “These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve”. Our note: A true thought to keep in mind as you decide how you spend your short time in this world.
**There is a 2nd R. Lalique bottle that was used for La Feuillaison eau de toilette.
***Unsigned: We regularly advise typical collectors never to purchase any unsigned piece. Never Ever, Never Never.
****We are not Coty experts. Coty was known to supply bottles and perfume to Galeries Lafayette (and other stores) and La Feuillaison was a Coty fragrance. It was a sizable part of Coty’s business to anonymously supply complete presentations labeled for stores.
