Inkwell

1850-1875

Maker

Possibly New Granite Glass Works, Stoddard, N.H. (active 1865-1871)

Measurements

2-3/8 in x 2-1/4 x 2-1/4

Materials

Green “common” glass

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, gift of H. Rodney Sharp

Accession Number

1959.4236

Inscription

Remnants of a printed label remain on one side.  A small "jelly label" with “$4.50” is pasted onto the bottom.

Provenance

Ex coll. H. Rodney Sharp

Comments

This little octagonal inkwell, called an ink bottle in the early 19th century, is dark green, the color of "common glass."  Common glass needs to have impurities removed to clarify it.  The bottle was made in a full-size mold.  The heavy texture of the glass surface is the kind of reaction of hot glass to the colder temperature of the metal mold.  Once shaped, the glass-maker attached an iron pontil rod to the bottom of the bottle—a pontil mark remains—so that he could hold and manipulate the glass to shape the lip. 

The bottle label remnants are inadequate to suggest what it may have said.  An early accession records states that remaining portions say "...STENBUR...", also a central "K," possibly part of "INK."  A similar inkwell is illustrated in fig. 136, Kenneth M. Wilson, New England Glass & Glassmaking (1972), p. 173.  Evidence is not yet sufficient to establish a probable identification of this inkwell.