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You have a nice (and probably scarce) pair of novelty giftware/promotional whisky ‘decanter’ bottles made in Italy, primarily for use in export to the US, which I think are most likely from the immediate postwar period… circa late 1940s to early 1950s. They could conceivably be pre-war but I doubt it and, in any case, not earlier than 1931. I haven’t seen that particular cherub ‘candlestick’ design before, so it may have been an exclusive for that particular whisky company.
The Ambassador Whisky referred to is a now discontinued blend originally created by Taylor & Ferguson Ltd of Glasgow, Scotland. They were incorporated as a blender in 1931 and their major brand was Ambassador blended Scotch, which was billed as “the world’s lightest” Scotch. The company was absorbed by Bloch Brothers after WWII and ‘Ambassador’ was then bottled for export under either the Bloch Brothers name, or Taylor & Ferguson’s name until Bloch Brothers was acquired by the Canadian group Hiram Walker & Sons in 1954. Ambassador continued as a brand until the late 1980s, with its main market in the USA.
The supplier of the novelty bottles is not known, except that they were operating out of Italy, producing glazed decorated novelty stoneware and china ornaments (like the one below), and also seem to have specialised in promotional items for the wine and spirits trade… carafes, bottles, liquor decanters, steins, jugs and such.
View attachment 1991194
The wine and liquor related items include moulded clowns, and all kinds of other figurative subjects. The marks actually impressed into the pieces all have the same crowned shield in a wreath trademark as on your pair, often accompanied by the word “Italy” or “Made in Italy”.
Some of them also include the words “RIP. VIETATA” (as below, from a ‘fisherman’ decanter bottle) leading to some eBay sellers concluding it’s the name of the company, but it’s not. It’s for “rip[roduzione] vietata”, which is Italian for “reproduction prohibited” as a copyright protection.
View attachment 1991195
The designation “C.C. Art. 2598” is sometimes also seen alongside the trademark but, again, that relates to copyright protection (Article 2598 of the Codice Civile), so the trademark seems to have been registered on or after 16th March 1942 (the date for the legislation referred to). It might have been used unregistered before that, but I think not likely to be seen on whisky bottles from the wartime years.
A number of suggestions have been made about the maker based on labels stuck to the pieces or other printed marks but, again, all incorrect. Those all relate to wine/spirit agents and other importers, mainly in the USA, who were customers for the containers and not the actual ceramic producer. Several American liquor producers seem to have been customers as well as some Italian wine producers.
