Have you ever heard of a "bottle whimsey"? It's an object, artwork, or complete scene inside a glass bottle. You are familiar with the classic ship-in-a-bottle, but that's only one type among an astonishing variety of things that people managed to get into a bottle. It's a folk art that people developed as a hobby that resulted in an impressive accomplishment shielded from damage by the bottle itself. Susan D. Jones, author of Genius in a Bottle: The Art and Magic of Bottle Whimseys, explains the rise of the art form.
“The vast majority of whimseys date from after 1900, even 1910,” Jones explains. “They didn’t become something everyday people could make until bottles became common and thought of as disposable. My guess is that the first disposable small bottles were patent medicine bottles; so many of my older bottles are stamped with the name of a drugstore.”
After the Civil War, handmade bottle whimseys became more popular in the United States and the themes expanded from the craft’s European roots: Some showcased Masonic or fraternal objects, wishing wells, farm or household tools, elaborate whittled fans, and other general whimsies. As Jones writes in her book, “A growing and mobile population of laborers spread the art form through contacts on the job, in the Army and Navy, in prison, and by the late 19th century, through the hobo communities connected by river, road and rail. Houses, intricate interlocking wooden puzzles, shops and saloons and brothels, fans and birds, framed pictures and memorials, tools, chairs, and wishing wells all became the subjects of this folk-art expression.”
“I think the yarn winders and niddy noddies and spinning wheels were popular because they are difficult to make and wind,” Jones says. “The kind with different levels of spokes coming out from the center, wound with thread around them and sometimes with beads, are very challenging. So there is an extra ‘gee whiz’ factor. And yarn winders were something many people had at home to copy from.”
Read the rest of the story, and see some amazing examples of bottle whimseys at Collectors Weekly.