Page 10 - Sunday 21 March Auction

Coming Up Smelling of Roses - Rigge & Brockbank
29. RIGGE EMBOSSED EARLY MEDICINE BOTTLE. 6ins tall, aqua glass, tooled band lip, arched shoulders with heavily chamfered vertical edges. Cross-hinge mould base, and pontil scar - see easylive images to zoom in. Chunkily embossed serif lettering to front panel RIGGE/ BROCKBANK/ & RIGGE NEW BOND St.’ A particularly rare and early bottle of some significance -
see history below. Another Reigate Caves discovery by Steve
Narraway decades ago - an important and rare offering.
(10/10) NR £400-600+
David Benoni Kirkby Rigge (1759-46) was brought to
London from Cumbria in 1773 by his maternal uncle John
Thomas Rigge, a metalworker and goldsmith and “Inventor
and Manufacturer of the Celebrated Magnetic Tablet, for
Sharpening Razors”. This arose as a result of his birth out of wedlock,
a story which became inspiration for a poem by William Wordsworth.
He was apprenticed to perfumer Robert Warren at Golden Square before starting his own at 74 Newgate Street. He is listed in 1794 at 65 Cheapside from where the ‘Magnetic’ razor was still advertised in1837. A single delftware ointment pot is recorded with ‘RIGGE / 65 / Cheapside’ (found in Fallsington Pennsylvania).
Around 1807 David moved to 35 Bond Street with John remaining at Cheapside and Park Street. A bill dated 1809 (British Library - Heal, 93.24) advertises John Rigge “Perfumer to his Majesty, Cheapside, London”. It was at this address, at the sign of the ‘Civet Cat & Rose’, that pots of cold cream with a very rare blue print transfer showing the cat and rose garlands were sold.
* See pages 377 & 492-3 in‘Historical Guide to Advertising Pot Lids’ for the relevant pot lid and Delft type ointment pot.
Robert Atkinson Brockbank (1784-1863) married David’s daughter
Mary Rigge on 26 May 1813 at St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London. The exact form of partnership wording on the bottle was in use in 1838-40 when Thomas Tallis’s ‘Street Views of London’ also pictured their premises; they also had a shop at 5 East Street, Brighton. In 1855 the partnership of Joseph Rigge, Robert and Henry Rigge is listed as dissolved. Robert was retired by 1861 and living in Morecambe. Henry Rigge continued at Bond Street advertising (“formerly Rigge, Brockbank & Rigge”) ‘Antacid Emulsion’ washing liquid in 1856 and a budget range of small bottles in 1860. The shop closed in 1864 but stray adverts suggest he continued to sell from premises in Kingston. Although patent medicines were sold (Churchill’s ‘Ramah Droogh’ for instance) their main products were perfumery including Extract of Roses soap ‘for washing the hair’, Eau de Colgne and Royal Extract of Flowers. The bottle then
is probably perfumery related (possibly an early shampoo bottle) circa
1830-1850.
* A more comprehensive article will feature in BBR 167 magazine.
Above: Rigge/ Perfumer to his Majesty trade card with Royal emblem.
Above: Rigge, Brockbank, and Rigge trade advert from 1839.