Snuff Bottle
1750-1895 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Snuff is powdered tobacco, usually blended with aromatic herbs or spices. The habit of snuff-taking spread to China from the West during the 17th century and became established in the 18th century. People generally carried snuff in a small bottle. By the 20th century these bottles had become collectors' items, owing to the great variety of materials and decorative techniques used in their production.
Object details
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Object type | |
Parts | This object consists of 2 parts.
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Brief description | Scu, China, carving, chalcedony Scu, China, carving, chalcedony |
Physical description | The bottle is a rounded flattened flask form, with wide neck-hole and two-part stopper with irregular flat top. It is made of chalcedony, honey colour shading to grey, with dark brown skin and inclusions, with decoration carved in low relief. The stopper of turquoise blue ceramic and coral. The decoration depicts a fisherman sitting in a boat with a basket beside him, the moon and a bat above. On the neck of the bottle is a cloud and on the reverse, a cat sitting beside a rock, and bamboo with a butterfly on it. The bottle does not have a foot but a flat oval base. The shallow dark brown layer is carved to form the decoration; there is some carving on the grey areas of stone as well. The word for butterfly, die, is a homonym with the word for 'seventy' and the word for cat, mao, sounds like the word for eighty; together they for maodie, meaning 'long life' (Bartholomew, 1988). |
Dimensions |
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Style | |
Credit line | Salting Bequest |
Object history | Bequeathed by Mr. George Salting, accessioned in 1910. This acquisition information reflects that found in the Asia Department registers, as part of a 2022 provenance research project. |
Subjects depicted | |
Summary | Snuff is powdered tobacco, usually blended with aromatic herbs or spices. The habit of snuff-taking spread to China from the West during the 17th century and became established in the 18th century. People generally carried snuff in a small bottle. By the 20th century these bottles had become collectors' items, owing to the great variety of materials and decorative techniques used in their production. |
Bibliographic reference | White, Helen. Snuff Bottles from China. London: Bamboo Publishing Ltd in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992. 291p., ill. ISBN 1870076109. |
Collection | |
Accession number | C.1942&A-1910 |
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Record created | July 22, 1998 |
Record URL |
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