Perfume Bottles

8PERFUME BOTTLES: DECORATIVEPART IPERFUME BOTTLES: DECORATIVEThe earliest known scent bottles weresmall stone containers used by the predynasticEgyptians to hold perfumed oil.Glassmaking has been traced toSumerian sites in Mesopotamia dating fromthe 23rd century BC. By the 18th Egyptiandynasty, the very new technique of moldingglass was employed for making scentcontainers. Blown glass was first developedin the Roman Empire approximately 100Chapter 1BC and increased the ease and speed ofproducing glass vessels, including scentcontainers. The Romans also introducedoxides into their soda-lime glass to producecolors such as opaque white and yellow,cobalt and greenish-blue and more.The Chinese produced excellent opaqueand layered glass carved in patterns forcenturies before the techniques were used inthe West.AMERICAN 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY GLASSThe history of American glass reallybegins in 1738 when Caspar Wistarestablished a glassworks in New Jersey andhired experienced German craftsmen. Today,most South Jersey free blown glass from the18th and 19th centuries is called by the genericname “Wistar.” These are typically in shadesof green, aquamarine or amber. After theRevolution, German immigrants were in theforefront of the glass industry. Early glass wasmostly simple and utilitarian until after theCivil War. Early scent bottles, called pungents,were free blown in figural shapes like seahorses and musical instruments and couldhave held either smelling salts or scent. Theseusually had cork stoppers and were unsigned.The Boston and Sandwich GlassCompany (1825-1888) was known for itscolored flint glass (early form of lead glass).It produced pungents with pewter caps andis justly famous today for its large variety ofmolded and cut glass cologne bottles, oftenin aquamarine, opaque white, opalescent orother colors. Today, the company is mainlyremembered for lacy patterned pressedglass, often referred to generically as“Sandwich glass”, but it made severalvariations of striped and spatter glass inimitation of old Venetian glass.Yes, there really was a woman namedMary Gregory who worked for the Bostonand Sandwich Glass Company. There hasbeen a long controversy over her work at thefactory. There is no reliable record that sheever painted scenes of people, usuallychildren, in white enamel on colored glass,even though those items have come to beknown as “Mary Gregory glass.” Much ofwhat is known by that name was actuallymade in Europe. My own theory is that thename began when Mary herself startedcollecting enameled pieces with scenes ofchildren playing with hoops or chasingbutterflies and her friends would refer to thestyle by saying, “Oh, you know, that glassthat Mary Gregory likes.”5” green canary cologne with pointed stopperby Boston and Sandwich, ca. 1840-50,$500-650.