Although the exact usage of the pocket bottle is not entirely clear, evidence indicates that in the eighteenth century they were intended to hold alcoholic beverages. The factory of Henry William Stiegel produced thousands of pocket bottles. The most famous of the Stiegel patterns is the so-called diamond and daisy. Until the 1963 Corning-Smithsonian dig at the Frederick, Maryland, site of the Amelung factory where diamond and daisy shards were discovered, the pattern was thought to be unique to Stiegel. It is clear, however, that the diamond and daisy, which has no exact European prototype, originated in America with Stiegel.

Related examples: Winterthur (Palmer pp. 361–64, nos. 354–56); PMA (Garvan 1982, pp. 238–40, nos. 1–12); Toledo (Wilson p. 67, no. 2); McKearin and McKearin 1941, pl. 231, no. 1; MMA (Davidson and Stillinger 1985, p. 251, fig. 378).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.