History of Cobalt Blue Glass Bottles

Cobalt Blue Glass is a deep blue colored glass made by adding cobalt compounds to melted glass.

Most people consider it to be very pretty glass. Some people even collect bottles, vases, glasses, etc. made from cobalt glass.

Bristol Cobalt Blue Glass

The deep blue hue is created from cobalt ions derived from cobalt. Cobalt aluminate can be used the same way, and is used mostly for modern cobalt blue glass.

The earliest existing example of cobalt aluminate glass is a piece from about 2000BC from ancient Mesopotamia, it may have been uses as a pigment (powered glass, or "smalt", is used for pigment in paint, etc.). Not much more of this glass shows up until modern times.

Five hundred years later cobalt oxide smalt (powered glass used as pigment) if found in pottery in Egypt and other cultures after that.

Timeline

• 2700 BC to 79 AD
• Cobalt glass was used in jewelry, vases and some other objects by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Minoans and Persians. Cobalt glass was even found in Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius.
• 600 to 1350
• Cobalt used to color vases in the Tang and the Ming dynasties in China.
• 1470 to 1650
• The discovery of Cobalt in the Schneeberg Mountains of Germany. Around this time in Burma it was also derived from oxides.
• 1730 to 1780
• Georg Brandt discovered the mineral cobalt and was able to show it was the reason for the blue color in glass... up until his discovery people thought the blue color was caused by bismuth. T.O. Bergman identified cobalt as an element in 1780.
• 1800s
• The Norwegian Blaafarvevaerket produced 70 to 80 percent of the world's cobalt blue.
• 1930s to 1940s
• Cobalt blue was widely used in glassware during the depression. Some of the most popular pieces during the depression-era were made by the Hazel Atlas Glass company.
• Present Day
• Cobalt blue continues to be in demand and to be produced. Collectors particularly value antique pieces from the Victorian era through the early 20th century.

Blue Glass Bottles