bottle, snuff
Object
Accession Number
2010.007.001a-bDescription
a. Chinese ivory snuff bottle. Intricately carved and decorated with numerous groups of figures on three levels of a building. Some sitting at tables engaged in various pursuits. b. The stopper has a small spoon attached for extracting the snuff.Narrative
This carved ivory bottle with stopper and spoon was made in China. Its purpose was to hold powdered tobacco, also known as snuff. Hence, it is properly called a snuff bottle. Snuff was introduced into China by Europeans. In China, the large and often sharp-edged boxes that Europeans stored their snuff in were considered impractical in part because of their size and because they failed to control the levels of relative humidity that spoiled the snuff. The solution was small bottles with air-tight stoppers that could be easily carried.This example is expertly-caved and would have been owned by a wealthy person. Many Chinese snuff bottles are beautiful objects and were therefore collected, and often, used by people in North America and Europe.
History of Use
UnknownDate
1850 – 1875Dimensions
13.5 cm7 cm
