Space for Labelling On Medicine Bottles

[George]

The exterior surface of some mochrome glass, jade and stone medicine bottles were deliberately made with a panel ready for labelling.

Or there was left a concavity where the name of the remedy could be filled in with Chinese black grisaille ink.

I am just now learning this from a book titled "The Medicine-Snuff Bottle Connection" by Raymond Li.  This book was up for auction a couple weeks ago. I did not win it, but the library was able to track one down for me. I now realize that (as an example) this amber bottle was most likely originally a medicine bottle.

Apparently, with medicine bottles, where the contents had to be protected from moisture, there was a distinct preference for monochrome colors and particularly for transparent or semi-transparent bottles where one could easily see how much was left of the contents.

Reading the above mentioned book is making me look at many snuff bottles a lot differently. Bottles like this Yong Shou T'ien with the flat panels, and even this amber bottle may quite likely also have been medicine bottles originally.

The book is making me look at some Middle Period bottles in quite a different light. Beginning to see a much closer connection between medicine and snuff bottles than I had previously known. For such a small book, and only 80 pages, it is really an eye opener... Will share more from it later...