Brilliant French backpack crop sprayer in copper. The tank is embossed with the following (and also has the remnants of a blue sticker):
ECLAIR VERMOREL
Made in France
The lid is also embossed and the 'shoulders' of the unit are embossed with what look to me like bolts of lightning. There re two leather shoulder straps and a lever (needs refitting) that was used to create pressure within the tank itself. The brass tap (to which a spray hose would be attached) is detachable.
Museum listing
The following details describe a similar item at the Conservatoire de l'Agriculture in Chartres
* Domain: Crop maintenance and protection
* Denomination: Sprayer
* Name: Vermorel backpack sprayer
* Made in: France
* Date of manufacture: 1920 approx
* Place of manufacture: Villefranche sur Saône (Rhône)
* Function: Crop protection
* Place of use: Brittany, Côtes d’Armor
* Materials: copper, rubber, leather
Vermorel
Vermorel was a family-owned business that operated from 1850 to 1965 and was best known as an automobile manufacturer. Its origins however were in manufacture of agricultural equipment ... "notably a machine for spraying sulphur-based insecticides and fungicides in the region's vineyards, still recovering from the destruction wrought by the Phylloxera plague during the 1870s and 1880s."