Each bottle is only a couple inches tall and the intricate scenes are painted form the inside, hence "Inside Painted". Normally when painting you would start with the background and work your way forward. In the case of painting one of these bottles you have to work from the foreground to the background, hence also being called "Reverse Painted". This is done with a tiny paint brush with just a couple hairs that is put in through the tiny top opening of the bottle.
The bottles had in most cases two layers of glass. The bottle itself is clear glass that had an outer coating of a colored glass. The top layer (the colored glass) is hand carved away to revel the clear glass below, which has the picture painted on it from the inside. In carving the glass away not only is a border left of the color to frame the picture but designs (usually Chinese Foo Dogs) are carved into the remaining color on the sides, almost like little handles. This makes the cameo bottle when carving layers to reveal others. I have other bottles that are just cameo bottles but these are Cameo AND Reverse Painted. I love'em!! When I get them out of storage I will be sure to put up many more detailed pictures. I included below a few more pic of the collection including a close up of a couple of the Cameo Reverse Painted bottles. Enjoy!
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