Perfume bottle belonging to Etta Moten Barnett: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This is a glass perfume bottle (a) and stopper (b). The clear glass bottle (a) is diamond shaped. It has a short slender round neck that leads to a sloping diamond-shaped shoulder with vertical ridges in the glass. The body of the bottle then divides into four faux ‘columns’, one at each corner of the diamond-shape. Each column has its own flaring foot. The clear glass stopper (b) is tall and fits into the neck of the bottle. It has a tall, narrow fluted fan projecting from the plug. The fan is asymmetrical with some of the fan spines longer than other. Two of the fan spines have horizontal ridges on them.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: ca. 1930
• Manufactured by: Unidentified
• Owned by: Etta Moten Barnett, American, 1901 - 2004
• Type: perfume bottles
• Medium: glass
• Dimensions: H x W x D (a: bottle): 3 3/4 × 3 3/8 × 2 3/4 in. (9.5 × 8.5 × 7 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W x D (b: stopper): 4 13/16 × 1 9/16 × 3/16 in. (12.3 × 4 × 0.4 cm)
• Place used: Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Activism
• Topic: Actors
• Topic: Broadway Theatre
• Topic: Cosmetics
• Topic: Singers (Musicians)
• Topic: Women
• Object number: A2022.13.1.8ab
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: No known copyright restrictions Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.