Dutch 18th Century Mouth-Blown Apothecary Onion Phial with Stopper – c.1750

For two and a half centuries, this little bottle has been minding its own business. It held medicines, or perfumed water, or perhaps something fragrant and expensive that someone in 18th-century Amsterdam or Middelburg considered worth keeping in a proper vessel. Now it is here, and it is extraordinary.

This is a Dutch mouth-blown apothecary onion phial with its original stopper, made circa 1750, almost certainly in Amsterdam or Middelburg — the two great centres of Dutch glassmaking in the mid-18th century. The form is the classic onion bottle: a wide, flattened globular body with a broad, stable base — deliberately wide, so that it would not tip over on an apothecary's shelf or a dressing table — tapering to a short cylindrical neck with a hand-folded collar, irregular and slightly uneven in the way that only a human hand working hot glass can produce.

Read the glass

The material is purified soda glass — clearer and more refined than standard 18th-century soda glass, which tells you this was made for a purpose that required transparency: displaying the contents, or presenting something precious. The glass is alive with the marks of its making: trapped air bubbles, subtle surface irregularities, slight variations in wall thickness that catch the light and shift as you turn the bottle. The base has a deep, rough pontil mark — a pronounced concave kick and the unmistakable scar of the glassblower's iron, broken away by hand after forming. This is not a reproduction. No reproduction has a pontil mark like this.

The original stopper is present — a small, hand-formed glass plug with its own irregularities and light use marks on the surface, consistent with 275 years of being picked up, replaced, and picked up again. No chips, no flaking, no cracks.

Height: 10 cm
Diameter: 7.5 cm
Weight: 93 grams
Material: Purified soda glass, mouth-blown
Origin: Netherlands — probably Amsterdam or Middelburg
Year: circa 1750
Features: Onion form, wide stable base, hand-folded collar, deep rough pontil mark, air bubbles and surface irregularities throughout, original stopper
Use: Apothecary bottle; also used for perfumed water or parfum
Condition: Very good — stopper has light use marks, no chips or cracks on bottle or stopper

Display it on a shelf, a bedside table, or a dressing table. Fill it with something fragrant if you like — it was made for exactly that. Or leave it empty and let the glass do the talking, which it is very good at.

WARNING: This bottle is 275 years old and weighs 93 grams. It is not fragile in the way that thin glass is fragile — the walls are relatively robust for its age — but it is irreplaceable, and should be handled accordingly. Also: do not place it in direct sunlight or near heat sources. Antique glass, however sturdy it appears, does not appreciate sudden temperature changes. It has survived this long by being treated with respect. Maison de L'oro recommends continuing that tradition.