The Glass Scent Bottle
This new lecture examines perhaps the
evolution of prettiest of all glass vessels, the scent
bottle. These have been formed almost since the birth
of glassmaking itself, either in Egypt on Mesopotamia,
around 4,000BC. Before the introduction of
glass-blowing, around the time of the birth of Christ,
scented oil bottles were formed by coiling molten
glass, like plastisene, around a core of camel dung
moulded into the appropriate shape. Even using these
primitive methods, Middle Eastern and Greek
glassmakers achieved astonishingly beautiful results.
This trend has continued ever since, albeit using superior
technology, with the finest examples set with precious gems
and lavished with gilded, engraved and cut decoration. The
story traces the stylistic and technological advances that
have marked glassmaking and the scent bottle since the days
of Rome, through the 18th century and Victorian
eccentricity, to the present day.
Bohemian ruby-flashed scent bottle, c1860.
