Posted 8 years ago
cshapiro
(177 items)
This is soooo cool! When I bought this bottle it looked blue in the pictures, so imagine my surprise when I opened it up and it was a lavender purple! That made me curious, so I took it to my desk to look up more about it and it changed to a cranberry pink in the incandescent lighting! Then I took it to the laundry room that has fluorescent lighting and it was blue! I looked at it under the loop and it's definitely glass, so I found out that there is a color changing glass called Neodymium or Alexandrite glass.
Here's what I found out about it:
Neodymium is a rare earth binary compound and is mostly mined in China. When used in crystal production you get dichromatic or dichroic glass. That is glass that changes color in different lighting conditions. Alexandrite will be a pale ice blue under fluorescent lighting and a striking lavender under incandescent lights.
I am calling the color alexandrite as that is the name given the color by Moser, who invented it around 1930.
So this bottle is really unusual! I just bought it because I loved the Shou symbol and the chilong dragons climbing along the sides and thought it was amazing workmanship that went into the bottle - plus it has it's original top. The color changing aspect was totally unexpected and a wonderful surprise!
I have a number of neo glass vases, and yes, they are so cool! I still get excited when the colours change.
Lovely bottle too.
Oh great! Perhaps you could tell me when they were made? It doesn't seem like they are made much anymore.
That's absolutely amazing I have never seen anything like that before . Absolutely stunning such a beautiful colours
thanks Master- it is really cool!
Neodymium glass, aka alexandrite glass, was supposedly invented by Moser in about 1930. It reached a peak of production through the 50s-70s but is still made today in some areas. The thing is, China has a lot of the mineral, and I couldn't say if they put it in glass before it was "invented" in Europe. I have seen some recent glass from China that appeared to be neodymium.
I think you would have a better idea than me by style for when this was made but my gut feeling would be after about 1950.
That is pretty amazing and how exciting to watch it change especially if you weren't expecting it to!!! Love that top. Is that amber?
Thanks for the info racer4four - I agree - I think mid-century on this. It's my understanding that Hong Kong continues to produce some high quality carvings even today. And yes, Shareurpassion, I do think the yellow top is baltic amber. ;)
So beautiful and unusual!
Thanks CW for beeing a place where you learn something new every day :-)