Glass Etc.
..... the centre of the glass universe!
The Glass Scent Bottle
This lecture examines perhaps the
evolution of the prettiest of all glass vessels, the
scent bottle. These have been formed almost since the
birth of glassmaking itself, either in Egypt or
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.