Handblown Antique Apothecary Bottle Full of Soluble Blue Pigment

Regular price $80.00

I've found this bottle near impossible to photograph, but the inset detail in the first image gives a sense of the fantastic blue powder inside, which I take to be Soluble (Prussian) Blue. While most definitely a glorious pigment to use for painting or dying (I dissolved a bit in water and it produces beautiful color), I have a notion--housed as it is in an antique handblown apothecary bottle--that it may have been used for medical purposes; from what I have read, the soluble version of Prussian blue can be used as a dye used to detect iron in tissue sections. Whatever the case, I've found no other example of an old apothecary bottle full of "Sol. Blue" out there, and the abundance of the powder in this one feels like riches greater than gold to me, making me think of the vast art history of wonder-inducing blues.

10” t x 3 1/2” d. The bottle itself, with original stopper, is in excellent condition, with pontil on the underside. About half full.