A Collection of Ten English Wine and Utility Bottles

An group of ten hand-blown English wine and utility bottles, ranging in form from early onion and shaft-and-globe types through to later mallet-shaped and cylindrical examples, each in varying shades of dark olive and black glass. Several display a fine, natural iridescent surface sheen resulting from centuries of burial and weathering, enhancing their archaeological character and historical appeal.
The earlier, squat-bodied onion forms (c.1660–1690) with short necks and wide shoulders represent the earliest English attempts at producing strong bottles suitable for wine storage and transport — a technological innovation following the introduction of coal-firing in glasshouses under Sir Robert Mansell’s monopoly (1615–40). By the later seventeenth century, glassblowers at Vauxhall, Newcastle, Bristol, and Shaftesbury refined the shape into the transitional mallet and elongated cylindrical bottles (c.1700–1720), designed to stand upright in cellars and resist cork pressure from the newly popular practice of bottling wine.
Condition: Surface weathering and iridescence to some; minor chips and wear consistent with age; no modern restoration.