8 Glass


Miniature perfume bottles with gold decoration, made in northern India during the 19th century, gift of Alice Boney


Black glass snuff bottle with aventurine spots, made in the Imperial Workshops in Beijing, China, during the Qianlong reign (1736-1795), bequest of Marian Swayze Mayer


Millefiori perfume bottle with paperweights as the base and stopper, most likely made in Boshan, China, in the 1930s, gift of the Honourable and Mrs Amory Houghton


Dove-shaped perfume container (kuşlar), opalescent white glass with gilding and pink and orange-red enamels, made in Beykoz, Turkey between 1800-1825


Gold-ruby glass snuff bottle in the shape of a double gourd, a pointed spoon is attached to the mottled jadeite cap, possibly made in the Imperial Workshops in Beijing, China, in the 18th century, bequest of Marian Swayze Mayer


SENSORIUM Stories of Glass and Fragrance T


his exhibition looks at the millennia-long


relationships between glass, perfumery, and


the storage of scent. Presenting vessels from Ancient Egypt and Rome to those designed by contemporary artists, as well


as a


selection of glass ware from China, India, and Japan. Te curator of the exhibition, Julie Bellemare, explains that the exhibition was an opportunity to explore why glass and scent became inextricably linked, and why glass continues to be the material of choice for vessels holding perfume millennia later, as these objects hold important cultural histories, providing a lens through which to understand topics as varied as the history of medicine, the advent of chemistry, and global cultural and trade exchange. From the


very beginnings inertness, of


glassmaking, glass vessels have been created to hold and diffuse fragrance. Te material’s unique properties – impermeability,


and


beauty – make it particularly suited to the purpose of encapsulating a


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Blown glass rosewater sprinkler, probably made in Egypt or Western Asia between 1100-1200, gift of I C Elston, Jr


substance as fleeting and precious as scent. In Ancient Egypt and Rome, small glass containers were shaped for unguents and perfumes. In the Islamic world, glass was thinly blown into elegant sprinklers to welcome guests with rosewater. Early modern forays into Asia enabled the Dutch to infuse oils with Indonesian spices and store them in beautifully gilded and enamelled vessels, and in 19th- century Europe, advances in chemistry led to a new wave of iconic fragrances,


inseparable from the


glass bottles that have now become synonymous with luxury perfume industry. In addition to showing the


evolution of perfume bottles over time,


stand-alone displays help


illustrate four distinct stories. Te first case features rosewater sprinklers, notable for their bulbous bodies and long narrow necks, uniquely suited to control the flow of the precious and expensive liquid. Te highly fragrant Damascus rose was once an exotic and rare flower to


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Transparent, engraved, and cutglass medicine bottle said to have contained peppermint oil, probably created in Japan around 1870


European consumers, necessitating specialised glass vessels to cater to its uses as demand spread across the Mediterranean. In the exhibition, a pair of small,


gilded, bottles made in northern India in the 19th century have been largely overlooked until now, but these vials’ small size and floral decoration hints at their function as perfume bottles. In India, perfume is known as attar, a heady mix of flowers, herbs, spices, and other natural materials


in a base of


sandalwood oil (rather than alcohol). Perfume makers in Kannauj, in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, have been producing attar for over 400 years, predating the French perfume industry. Te area on the banks of the Ganges is perfect


for the


cultivation of roses along with other plants introduced from Iran and Central Asia. Visitors are also able to smell four


spiced oils inspired by this pair of attar bottles – a boxed set of four flasks which likely contained


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aromatic oils infused with precious spices from Sri Lanka and Indonesia: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace. In the 1600s and 1700s, Dutch merchants bottled up expensive oils infused with these aromatic spices in richly decorated flasks and gifted them to local rulers and trade partners along the Indian Ocean. Te second case in the exhibition


highlights the snuff trade between Europe and China in the 18th century, when highly portable glass objects stimulated the development of new Chinese glassmaking techniques, such as aventurine and gold-ruby glass. Also critical to this narrative are the objects needed to create and distil scent. Alongside a rare 16th-century illustrated book on distillation from the museum’s Rakow Research Library, this section of the exhibition also explores glass as a tool for creating perfume in addition to containing fragrance. Another display is dedicated to snuff


bottles, which also tells a global glass story. Snuff is powdered tobacco leaves


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