Picture: Lara Breckon

They call them damigiane in Italy – demijohns to us Brits – elegant large bottles, usually in dark green or brown, and used in the past for storing olive oil or wine. The name seems to come from the French in the 17th Century: dame-jeanne, ‘Lady Jane,’ although who she was and where she lived I do not know (But I would have worried, were the original Lady Jane, to have had so thin a neck and such spreading lower portions.)

In the times past, demijohns were also used for fermentation (wine and beer), but these days people tend to use stainless steel vats – and they throw these wonderful artefacts away.

On his travels in his Ape (a tiny, three-wheeled truck powered by a Vespa engine), our gardener Flavio Terenzoni collects them. We now have dozens in the courtyard, in the Frantoio and in terraces. Here’s another picture:

Our guests seem to love them, though the painters have a love-hate relationship. They love their shape, their colour and the reflections of the Watermill buildings in the glass. But they are devilishly difficult to paint, to capture the shape and the shadow.

Come and see our demijohns for yourself. We are sure you will be delighted and, if you are a painter, challenged.