bottle, snuff
Object
Accession Number
2010.007.002Description
Chinese ivory snuff bottle intricately and profusely carved with hundreds of people celebrating the dragon festival.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
14.5 cm4.5 cm
