It would be natural to assume that ink bottles date to the beginning of glassblowing and the written word, but prior to the 18th century, the most common form of ink was a cake or powder, which the writer would mix with water. It was only in the late 1700s that liquid ink in wide-bottomed bottles was widely available for sale. Ink bottles differ from inkwells in that the bottles were designed to serve a purely utilitarian purpose (i.e., to...Continue Reading