Carl Worner was thought to have created anywhere between 300-600 bottles during his lifetime. Unfortunately, a mere fraction of these works have survived after a century of existence, and only roughly 100 bottles are known to museums and the whimsy collecting community. This website and bottle database is the first of its kind and an attempt to catalog all of Carl Worner’s bottles in existence.

Although glass bottle making dates back thousands of years to 1500 BC Mesopotamia, it was not until the late 19th and early 20th century that perfectly clear glass became both possible and affordable. At that moment, bottle whimseys found their ideal showcase. We all have marveled at delicate wooden ships constructed inside bottles, but perhaps no American bottle whimsey artist has earned more respect than the late Carl Worner.

Best known for his saloon scenes, Worner’s whimseys often threw down a humorous challenge to viewers to “Find the Missing Man” (almost always a male figure somewhat obscured in a tiny bathroom somewhere in the back of the bottle.) Prolific, Worner cleverly created many different lifelike scenes in bottles, including meat markets, bakeries, shoe stores, and religious scenes—with intricate mini-carved tableaus that seem to come alive, drawing the viewer deep inside the bottle. Over a hundred of Worner’s masterful bottle whimseys still survive, although sadly, not much is known about their secretive artist maker.