Impossible bottle

File:Small-penny-in-bottle.png in a small bottle]]

An impossible bottle is a bottle containing an object that appears too large to fit through the bottle's mouth.

The ship model in a bottle is a traditional and the most iconic type of impossible bottle. Other common objects include fruits, matchboxes, decks of cards, tennis balls, racketballs, Rubik's Cubes, padlocks, knots, and scissors. These may be placed inside the bottle using various mechanisms, including constructing an object inside the bottle from smaller parts, using a small object that expands or grows inside the bottle, or molding the glass around the object.

Ship in a bottle

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There are two ways to place a model ship inside a bottle. The simpler way is to rig the masts of the ship and raise it up when the ship is inside the bottle. Masts, spars, and sails are built separately and then attached to the hull of the ship with strings and hinges so the masts can lie flat against the deck. The ship is then placed inside the bottle and the masts are pulled up using the strings attached to the masts.{{cite web|last=Lardas |first=Mark |url=http://www.boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/2459/raise-the-sails/ |title=September 2006 Boys' Life magazine |publisher=Boyslife.org |access-date=2010-06-08}}{{cite web|url=http://www.shipbottle.ru/english/how/ |title=how to section |publisher=Shipbottle.ru |access-date=2010-06-08}} The hull of the ship must still be able to fit through the opening.{{cite web|url=http://www.answers.com/topic/ship-in-a-bottle-2 |title=How is a ship in a bottle made? |publisher=Answers.com |access-date=2010-06-08}} Bottles with minor distortions and soft tints are often chosen to hide the small details of the ship such as hinges on the masts. Alternatively, with specialized long-handled tools, it is possible to build the entire ship inside the bottle.

The oldest surviving ships in a bottle were crafted by Giovanni Biondo at the end of the eighteenth century; two, at least, reproduce Venetian ships of the line. These are quite large and expensive models: the bottles (intended to be displayed upside down, with the neck resting on a small pedestal) measure about 45 cm. The oldest (1784) is in a museum in Lübeck; another (1786) is held by a private collector; the third (1792), that apparently reproduces the heavy frigate PN Fama, is in the Navy Museum in Lisbon.{{Cite web|title=Folk Art In Bottles - Giovanni Biondo - 1st Ship in Bottle Builder|url=https://www.folkartinbottles.com/artists/artists-a-d/266-giovanni-biondo-the-first-ship-in-bottle-builder|access-date=2020-12-19|website=www.folkartinbottles.com}} Another old model (1795), from an unknown builder, is kept in a museum in Rotterdam.{{Cite web|date=2016-01-10|title=Ships in Bottles -- A Bit of the History and Lore|url=http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2016/01/ships-in-bottles-history-and-lore/|access-date=2020-12-19|website=Old Salt Blog|language=en-US}}

Ships in bottles became more popular as folk art in the second half of the nineteenth century, after the introduction of cheap, mass-produced bottles made with clear glass.{{cite journal |last1=Stammers |first1=Michael |date=1 March 2013 |title=Ships in Bottles and Their Origins in the Late Nineteenth Century |journal=The Mariner's Mirror |volume=99 |issue=1 |pages=92–94 |doi=10.1080/00253359.2013.767629 |s2cid=161283281 }}

A significant collection of ships in bottles is the Dashwood-Howard collection held by the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

God-in-a-bottle

File:John O'Neill POW camp photographs and crafts, item 1.jpg in a German POW camp]]

God-in-a-bottle, or God-in-the-Bottle, is a symbolisation of the crucifixion of Jesus through the placing in a bottle of carved wooden items, including a cross and often others such as a ladder and spear of Longinus. The crossbeam of the cross is attached to the vertical beam after both are in the bottle. The bottles were often filled with liquid, latterly sometimes with particles akin to a snow globe. Such bottles were used in 19th-century Irish Catholicism as devotional objects or as talismans akin to witch bottles.{{cite journal |last1=Healy |first1=Ben |title=God-out-of-the-Bottle |journal=Sligo Field Club Journal |date=2020 |volume=6}}{{cite book |last1=Kinmonth |first1=Claudia |title=Irish country furniture and furnishings 1700–2000 |date=2020 |publisher=Cork University Press |isbn=978-1782054054 |pages=415–417}} They were found elsewhere in Catholic Europe, and are related to older "Passion Bottles", made by glassblowers in their spare time, where a large variety of small glass symbols of the Passion of Jesus were inserted into a bottle.{{cite journal |last1=Bruhn |first1=Jutta-Annette |title=A Passion Bottle by Alexandre Soudart |journal=Journal of Glass Studies |date=1994 |volume=36 |pages=135–139 |jstor=24190062 |issn=0075-4250}}

The making of Gods-in-bottles was exported through Irish diaspora, notably to mining communities in Northern England, where scenes with mining tools sometimes replaced the crucifixion.{{multiref|

{{cite news |last1=Pilger |first1=Zoe |title=British folk at the Tate: Art – but no class |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/british-folk-at-the-tate-art-but-no-class-9516797.html |access-date=11 April 2024 |work=The Independent |date=9 June 2014 |language=en}}|

{{cite journal |last1=Sparrow |first1=Vicky |title='British Folk Art: The house that Jack built' by Tate Britain |journal=Dandelion: Postgraduate Arts Journal and Research Network |date=13 March 2015 |volume=5 |issue=2 |page=5 |doi=10.16995/ddl.322 |doi-access=free}}|

{{cite book |title=The Essential Guide to Beamish — The Living Museum of the North |date=2014 |publisher=Jarrold Publishing |isbn=978-0-85101-538-5 |page=20 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780851015385/page/20}}

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{{cite book |last1=Kenny |first1=Ruth |pages=72–73 |editor1-last=Kenny |editor1-first=Ruth |editor2-last=Myrone |editor2-first=Martin |editor3-last=McMillan |editor3-first=Jeff |chapter=God-in-a-Bottle |title=British folk art: [on the occasion of the exhibition British Folk Art, Tate Britain, 10 June - 31 August 2014; Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 27 September - 14 December 2014] |date=10 June 2014 |publisher=Tate Publishing |location=London |isbn=978-1849762649}}

|cited in {{cite book |last1=Mc Hugh |first1=Christopher |title=Vessels of Memory: Glass Ships in Bottles |date=7 July 2018 |publisher=Cornerhouse Publications |isbn=978-1-906832-34-6 |pages=61–66 |chapter-url=https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/publications/vitrified-memory-a-contemporary-archaeology-of-glass-ships-in-bot |chapter=Vitrified memory: a contemporary archaeology of glass ships in bottles}}

}} Examples are in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life{{cite tweet |user=NMIreland |author=National Museum of Ireland |number=784005316149125120 |title=Passion Bottle or ‘God in a Bottle’ contain wooden objects usually a crucifix symbolising the Passion of Christ, on display NMI-CountryLife |date=6 October 2016 }} the Irish Agricultural Museum, Enniscorthy Castle museum, and the Beamish Museum in County Durham.{{cite web |title=God in a bottle |url=http://collections.beamish.org.uk/search-detail?item=NEG96118 |website=People's Collection |publisher=Beamish Museum}}{{cite journal |last1=Gascoigne |first1=Laura |title=Folk tales |journal=Apollo |date=1 June 2014 |volume=179 |issue=621 |pages=88 |language=English}} Later makers were often Irish Travellers, whose craftworks often recycle discarded objects.{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Mary |chapter=Irish Travellers, the Environment, and Literature |title=A History of Irish Literature and the Environment |date=28 July 2022 |pages=206–226 |doi=10.1017/9781108780322.011}} Richard Power's 1964 novel The Land of Youth, set in a fictional version of the Aran Islands,{{cite web |last1=Doyle |first1=Carmel |title=Power, Richard (Dick) (de Paor, Risteard) |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/power-richard-dick-de-paor-risteard-a7465 |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |publisher=Royal Irish Academy |access-date=11 April 2024 |language=en |doi=10.3318/dib.007465.v1 |date=October 2009}} mentions an outcast who uses driftwood for what is "known to generations of children as God-in-a-bottle."{{cite book |last1=Power |first1=Richard |title=The Land of Youth |date=1964 |publisher=Dial Press |location=New York |page=6 |url=https://archive.org/details/landofyouth0000powe/page/6}} Although the Offaly Independent says that in the 1970s "almost every pub in Tullamore" displayed a bottle,{{cite news |title=Keeping the ‘God in the Bottle’ craft tradition alive |last1=Grennan |first1=Geraldine |url=https://www.offalyindependent.ie/2023/02/03/keeping-the-god-in-the-bottle-craft-tradition-alive-2/ |access-date=11 April 2024 |work=Offaly Independent |date=3 February 2023}} by the 21st century they were largely unknown in Ireland.{{multiref|

{{cite journal |last1=Manning |first1=Conleth |title=Archaeology in Ireland’s journals 2020 |journal=Archaeology Ireland |date=2021 |volume=35 |jstor=27075193 |issue=1 |pages=51 |issn=0790-892X |quote=while most people are familiar with ships in bottles, few will have heard of putting a small wooden cross and symbols of the Passion into a bottle ... called 'God in a bottle'}}

|{{cite news |last1=McNally |first1=Frank |title=Glass act |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irish-diary/2024/04/11/glass-act-frank-mcnally-on-the-folk-art-of-god-in-a-bottle/ |access-date=12 April 2024 |work=The Irish Times |date=12 April 2024 |language=en}}

}} A 2023 episode of Nationwide reported on two men in the Irish midlands still practising the tradition.

Small objects that expand naturally

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One variation of the impossible bottle takes advantage of pine cones opening as they dry out. In constructing the display, a closed, green cone of suitable size is inserted into a narrow-mouthed bottle and then allowed to dry inside the bottle.{{cite web|url=http://www.instructables.com/id/pine-cones-in-a-bottle |title=Pine Cone in the Bottle Display |publisher=Instructables |access-date=2010-06-08}}

Fruits and vegetables inside bottles are grown by placing a bottle around the blossom or young fruit and securing it to the plant. The fruit then grows to full size inside the bottle.[http://www.scienceprojectideas.co.uk/grow-apples-tomatoes-bottles.html Science Fair Project Ideas: Grow Apples or Tomatoes in Bottles] This technique is used to put pears into bottles of pear brandy (most famously the French eau de vie Poire Williams).{{Cite web | url=https://janalinesworldjourney.com/2014/10/03/full-grown-pear-inside-brandy-bottle/ | title=How do you get a full-grown pear inside a Brandy bottle?| date=2014-10-03}}