Topic: Old Green Bubble Glass Bottle

[TxSilver]

I hope there are some bottle experts out there. This bottle is about 8" high. It appears to be mold blown with a distinct pontil scar and no mold lines. I guess one would call the glass bollicine or pulegoso, though I've become confused with these terms lately. The applied ring around the mouth is crystal clear glass with no bubbles. The bottle seems fairly old. I thought it might be a French, Italian, or Mexican wine/liquor bottle. I hope someone can help point me in the right direction.

[Ivo]

I'd call that pulegoso and would think it is Murano circa 1920s - there were many companies who used this fairly uncomplicated technique at the time. The better ones used better finish, of course....

[TxSilver]

Thanks, Ivo. It is the answer I am hoping for (Murano or Empoli). South Central European bottle research is very difficult.

[langhaugh]

If it were late 1920's Murano, it would be Martinuzzi for Venini, as that's when Martinuzzi developed pulegoso.  To me, it's too simple for Martinuzzi and the surface  isn't rough enough.  I'd be very happy if it were Venini, not just because I like to see Anita happy, but, well, snap, I've got a very similar piece, same finish on lip and same pontil mark.

David

[TxSilver]

Your bottle is a lot like mine, David. I doubt mine is Martinuzzi. There is a green pulegoso piece for sale in a German market that has a pontil like mine. The seller calls it Martinuzzi, but there is no signature and the pontil is all wrong. The bubbles on my bottle are not right for Martinuzzi. They are rather mild, instead of profuse. I have a feeling they were made using sodium carbonate or bicarbonate. There is not a lot of pitting of the surface. I have a feeling our bottles were probably made to hold an alcoholic beverage of some companies. I can imagine a capped cork in the mouths. My first instinct when I picked up the bottle was that it was Empoli, though there is nothing I can put my finger on that made me think that. The pontil is not finished well, so the instinct was probably wrong.

I've wondered if Martinuzzi and Scarpa did indeed invent the foam glass techniques. Sometimes the Italian ego is strong, so I can have a difficult time sorting out the truth from the boast. If the techniques were invented in the 1920-30s, I imagine that other people used it right away if it was popular. Secrets were hard to keep after workers were free to come and go.

[langhaugh]

Anita:

I think your analysis of the bottles is dead on. I hadn't thought about a cork in the neck, but it's possible as the inside of the neck is straight and smooth. I would have thought it would have some kind of label as with Drioli, though, if they were used for bottle.

"Sometimes the Italian ego is strong," you say. You have a very understated point there. I'm sure others were working with bubbles before this. Maurice Marinot, for example, was adding bubbles with a controlled chemical reaction in 1919, and there's not much of a jump from that to pulegoso, only a matter of degree. I had thought pulegoso was only used when petrol was added but the Catalog Raisonné  says that pulegoso was created with petrol or sodium bicarbonate.

David