The first bottles we decided to buy that were not carved out of stone were made of glass. A huge range of glass bottles is to be found in all shapes and colours as well as a variety of manufacturing techniques.

Much more research is needed in order to date these bottles, but it is generally now agreed that glass and metal bottles were the earliest materials to be used. The problem is that glass has been used throughout the whole snuff bottle period right up to the present day.

The Chinese had little use for glass prior to the 17th century mainly because of their highly refined porcelain skills. They had no glass windows, favouring translucent paper. We are not sure if glass had been used centuries earlier in China but it was certainly introduced to them by Europeans in good time for snuff bottles.

Cameo Glass - They considered it as a valuable material and excelled in producing very fine works of art. Sometimes they treated it just like a stone and carved bottles out of a solid piece, otherwise they blew glass into moulds. Creating many unusual bottles ranging from transparent to white as backgrounds for colour overlay work. They were also able to control bubbles and by the addition of white flecks in the glass, colours such as these apt names suggest were created: - Sodden Snow, Camphor, and Snowflakes.

These bottles would then be dipped into bright coloured molten glass which later would be carved away to leave a cameo style of design. Some were dipped more than once to provide more than one coloured layer. Another technique was to apply to different areas of the bottle coloured molten blobs of glass. When these were carved the bottle could have up to as many as eight different colours cameo carved without increasing the number of layers.

Quality Counts - To a connoisseur, the number of colours or layers is not so very important, as it was not such a difficult process and a far softer material to carve than stone. What really should be valued is the quality of the carving and the overall design. Quite often a wonderfully carved and well-designed single colour overlay will be worth far more than a multicolour but poorly finished bottle.

To assess these bottles the colour is a consideration but great attention is paid just as with stone cameo carving, to the quality of the carving and especially to how well the background is finished close to the edge of the overlay. I have selected a ruby red single overlay as a good example to photograph. It shows a coiled `Chih Lung' or dragon on both sides; also having mythological animal mask and mock ring handles on each shoulder 1750 - 1860. The dragon is a birth sign used rather like our zodiac signs. (See the photograph by clicking on the link at the end of this article).

There is a group of rather special, very finely worked overlay bottles known as the `Seal School' because they always include a seal with the design. They were made later and date back from the second half of the 19th century.

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