thumb|upright|A [[Penny (United States coin)|US penny in a small bottle, achieved by forming molten glass around the coin]]

An impossible bottle is a bottle containing an object that appears too large to fit through the bottle's mouth.

The ship model in a bottle is a traditional type of impossible bottle. Other common objects include fruits, matchboxes, decks of cards, tennis balls, racketballs, Rubik's Cubes, padlocks, knots, and scissors. These may be placed inside the bottle using various mechanisms, including constructing an object inside the bottle from smaller parts, using a small object that expands or grows inside the bottle, or molding the glass around the object.

Ship in a bottle

thumb|Ship in a bottle

There are two ways to place a model ship inside a bottle. The simpler way is to rig the masts of the ship and raise it up when the ship is inside the bottle. Masts, spars, and sails are built separately and then attached to the hull of the ship with strings and hinges so the masts can lie flat against the deck. The ship is then placed inside the bottle and the masts are pulled up using the strings attached to the masts. The hull of the ship must still be able to fit through the opening. Bottles with minor distortions and soft tints are often chosen to hide the small details of the ship such as hinges on the masts. Alternatively, with specialized long-handled tools, it is possible to build the entire ship inside the bottle.

The oldest surviving ships in a bottle were crafted by Giovanni Biondo at the end of the eighteenth century; two, at least, reproduce Venetian ships of the line. These are quite large and expensive models: the bottles (intended to be displayed upside down, with the neck resting on a small pedestal) measure about 45 cm. The oldest (1784) is in a museum in Lübeck; another (1786) is held by a private collector; the third (1792), that apparently reproduces the heavy frigate PN Fama, is in the Navy Museum in Lisbon. Another old model (1795), from an unknown builder, is kept in a museum in Rotterdam.

Ships in bottles became more popular as folk art in the second half of the nineteenth century,

A significant collection of ships in bottles is the Dashwood-Howard collection held by the Merseyside Maritime Museum. They were found elsewhere in Catholic Europe, and are related to older "Passion Bottles", made by glassblowers in their spare time, where a large variety of small glass symbols of the Passion of Jesus were inserted into a bottle.

The making of Gods-in-bottles was exported through Irish diaspora, notably to mining communities in Northern England, where scenes with mining tools sometimes replaced the crucifixion. Examples are in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life the Irish Agricultural Museum, Later makers were often Irish Travellers, whose craftworks often recycle discarded objects. Richard Power's 1964 novel The Land of Youth, set in a fictional version of the Aran Islands, mentions an outcast who uses driftwood for what is "known to generations of children as God-in-a-bottle." Although the Offaly Independent says that in the 1970s "almost every pub in Tullamore" displayed a bottle, by the 21st century they were largely unknown in Ireland. A 2023 episode of Nationwide reported on two men in the Irish midlands still practising the tradition.

Fruits and vegetables inside bottles are grown by placing a bottle around the blossom or young fruit and securing it to the plant. The fruit then grows to full size inside the bottle. This technique is used to put pears into bottles of pear brandy (most famously the French eau de vie Poire Williams).

See also

  • Bonsai Kitten
  • Chinese puzzle ball

References

  • Folk Art in Bottles

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fr:Bateau en bouteille

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no:Flaskeskute

nn:Flaskeskip

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ru:Корабль в бутылке

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