pretty bottles

July 1, 2007 3:40 AM

The art of perfume and snuff bottles: Chinese snuff bottles and more, a variety of types, painted inside and about that technique. About snuff and its use in China. Images on Flickr, at Christie's. Perfume bottles, the history of perfume bottles and perfume. Beautiful glass bottles painted inside by disabled Burmese artist, U Nyo Lay.
posted by nickyskye (12 comments total)

Wow, some of them are really beautiful, especially the "painted inside" ones. The only person I've ever known who used snuff (the grandmother of a childhood friend) kept hers in an ugly plastic snap-top container.
posted by amyms at 7:33 AM on July 1, 2007

Poison bottles on ebay.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:59 AM on July 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Nice.
posted by nola at 8:08 AM on July 1, 2007

From your museu del perfum link: Arymbalos (Αρύμβαλος) ancient greek perfume and oil bottles. They were made of clay and used mostly by athletes in the baths. Because,

... everybody had not liking for the scents in Greece. Socrates did not like them and affirmed that the men had not to use perfumes, since once perfumed, a free man smelled the same scent than an slave. However Diogenes who was a neglected man, quite dirty, who lived within a barrel, he perfumed the feet and he justified it saying: "if I perfume my feet, the scent arrives at my nose, if I put it on my head only the birds can smell it".
posted by carmina at 8:58 AM on July 1, 2007

Antiques Road Show, too. (scroll down). The inside-painted ones are amazing.
posted by nax at 10:16 AM on July 1, 2007

Art Nouveau and Art Deco era: A $20,000 Lalique bottle on Antique's Roadshow, and some other gorgeous Lalique bottles.
posted by girlhacker at 10:24 AM on July 1, 2007

At last! Links from Metafilter that my parents will be interested in! It's taken too long for this site to serve the 60-80 year old demographic.
posted by humblepigeon at 12:37 PM on July 1, 2007

My older sis is gonna love this nickyskye. She has a serious antique bottle fetish. Really, she needs help.
posted by vronsky at 12:56 PM on July 1, 2007

Hmm... maybe it's genetic because I want every one of those Chinese snuff bottles.

I tried a pinch of snuff when I was a kid. OMG I thought my brain was on fire. The pain was so intense. The nicotine rush was equally intense and lasted at least 15 - 20 minutes.
posted by vronsky at 1:03 PM on July 1, 2007

And now you know the origin of my life-long snuff addiction.
posted by vronsky at 2:09 PM on July 1, 2007

Wait, I've heard of these. You shoot video of the bottle from a bunch of different angles while bad electric jazz plays on the soundtrack, and after about ten minutes somebody smashes them with a hammer.

Oh, wait. Nevermind.
posted by lodurr at 5:05 AM on July 2, 2007

Thanks all for the additional links.

carmina, that was so funny!

vronsky, yeah, I tried snuff a couple of times. Same feelings you did. yeeeowww.
posted by nickyskye at 5:12 AM on July 2, 2007