A tall black glass decanter, the glass dense and glossy, waisted through the body to a ringed collar and a slim neck and finished with its original matching ball stopper, the part these almost always lose. Black glass has its own quiet drama. It reads as pure silhouette and throws the light back off its surface rather than letting it through.

It came as German and nothing about it argues otherwise, so that is how it is offered, a complete piece of mid-century Continental glass, unmarked as much of this ware was, and worth keeping precisely because it is whole.