Bottle

A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of impermeable material such as glass, pottery, porcelain, plastic, or aluminium, designed to store and transport liquids. Its mouth can be sealed with an internal stopper, external bottle cap, closure, or induction sealing. The bottle has proven to be one of the most enduring and versatile objects in human material culture, appearing in at least 149 works in the collection under discussion. The word first appears in English in the 14th century, deriving from Old French boteille, which stems from vulgar Latin butticula and ultimately from late Latin buttis, a latinisation of the Greek βοῦττις (bouttis) meaning vessel. The Germanic term, reflected in Old High German flaska and Middle High German vlasche, originally meant woven container, referring to the practice of surrounding early bottles made of wood, clay, tin, or sheet metal with wickerwork for protection and easier transport.

The treatment of the bottle in art reflects broader transformations in material culture technique and cultural practice. Ancient Mediterranean cultures primarily used the amphora for liquid transport, with small glass bottles appearing in Cyprus, Rhodes, and Persia by the 1st millennium BCE, though not initially for food liquids. Roman bottles, called ampullae, took various forms, typically featuring narrow necks, small mouths, pronounced shoulders, and spherical bodies for stability. The flat bottom gave way to the concave punt in the 4th century CE, improving stability. Medieval European glass production was dominated by Murano, where masters achieved remarkable skill in transparency, coloration, and decoration, producing Renaissance bottles inspired by metal and ceramic tableware forms. Until the late 17th century, glass bottles remained expensive and rare; food liquids traveled in barrels and were served in jugs, pitchers, or leather and tin flasks. The modern wine bottle emerged in 1632 with English diplomat Sir Kenelm Digby's invention, followed by France's first specialized bottle factory founded by Pierre Mitchell at Bordeaux in 1723. Coal-fired furnaces and modified raw materials, particularly manganese additions producing black glass, enabled heavier, more resistant bottles in mid-17th century England. These spread from the 18th century as coal furnace technology diffused. The 19th century brought specialized designs like Hiram Codd's 1872 patented bottle for carbonated drinks, using a marble and rubber washer seal. The 20th century introduced plastic bottles in the 1960s and aluminium bottles in the 2000s, fundamentally altering the object's material presence and cultural associations. Artistic responses tracked these shifts, from the preciousness of early glass to the mass-produced ubiquity of contemporary containers.

The bottle's persistence across 149 works in this collection testifies to its fundamental role in visual representation. Its evolution from rare luxury item to mass-produced commodity tracks parallel transformations in global trade, industrial manufacturing, and consumer culture. The technical developments in bottle production, from ancient glassblowing through 17th-century coal-furnace innovations to 19th-century specialized designs and 20th-century plastic and aluminium alternatives, each generated new formal possibilities and cultural associations for artistic engagement. The bottle's contemporary ubiquity, with PET bottles now dominating global markets and four multinational corporations, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Danone, controlling most production and use, has perhaps paradoxically diminished its individual symbolic weight while increasing its value as an index of modernity's material conditions. Environmental consciousness has recently reframed the bottle as a problematic object, its convenience now shadowed by awareness of plastic pollution and recycling imperatives. Artistic interest persists, whether in critical engagement with consumer waste or in continued exploration of the formal and optical properties that have attracted painters for centuries. The bottle's capacity to signify across registers, from humble domesticity to social ritual, from individual psychology to global commodity flow, ensures its continued relevance as a subject for artistic investigation.