table, parlour
Object
Accession Number
983.107Alternate Name
opium tableDescription
A low rectangular rosewood table profusely decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl, the curving legs terminating in a pierced design of flowers of mother-of-pearl, the top's large ovoid panel depicting pagodas, buildings and three human figures.Narrative
This style of Chinese table is sometimes referred to as an opium table. Tables like this one were often found in opium dens in Asia, North America, and in France during the 19th Century. They were low to the floor so that the-opium smoker could recline beside it and easily access the array of equipment needed to prepare and smoke opium. This equipment was usually brought to the table on a tray, and included a lamp, lamp-wick scissors and tweezers, pipes, pipe-bowl rests and scrapers, opium paste boxes and containers, ash/dross receptacles, and tools for rolling the opium "pills" or "pellets" as they were called.The opium poppy has been harvested for medicinal and recreational purposes for thousands of years. Opium-smoking in China became more widespread during the 19th Century as British merchants imported increasingly large quantities into that country from India. China's attempt to halt this trade resulted in the First Opium War (1839-1842) between Britain and China and the Second Opium War (1856-60) pitting Britain and France against China. In both wars, China was defeated, and opium-use continued there unabated. But opium-smoking was also being practiced in France, and by the European and Chinese populations of the United States and Canada. In Victoria, it was openly manufactured, sold and taxed until banned by the Government of Canada in 1908.
There is an interesting connection between the Dunsmuir family and the Second Opium War. In 1898, Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir of Craigdarroch married Reginald Spencer Chaplin, 10th Hussars, Aide-de-camp to Field Marshall Lord Roberts. His father, Col. John Worthy Chaplin, VC, CB (1840-1920) won the British Empire's highest military honour for valour, the Victoria Cross, on 21 August, 1860 during the Second Opium War. (see: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/22538/page/3363)
Not everyone in Britain supported that nation's complicity in the opium trade. In May of 1840, long before becoming Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone said that he was "in dread of the judgements of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China". In Parliament, he described the First Opium War as "a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress, to cover this country with permanent disgrace".
Tables like this one and the smoking paraphernalia they held were popular decorative items in North American homes during the late 19th Century. This example probably found its way to Victoria in the 1890's.
