A Venetian or façon de Venise latticinio flask, 18th century

Inspired in form by ancient Roman glass, the rounded conical body with a slender cylindrical neck and everted rim, decorated in vetro a retorti with an elaborate series of overlapping and spiralling tapes in opaque white, 8.5cm high

Provenance
Paul Gresswell-Wilkins Collection

In the 18th and 19th centuries small flasks such as this were produced in Venice as containers for perfume, medicines, eau de vie and other liquids. A related latticinio bottle with a similar rim in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no.BK-NM-1960-185) is illustrated by Pieter Ritsema van Eck, Glass in the Rijksmuseum (1993), p.66, no.84, where the uncertainty around the dating of bottles such as this is briefly touched upon.