Snuff Bottle
1796-1820 (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
Categories | |
Object type | |
Materials and techniques | Moulded and painted porcelain with a coloured glass stopper |
Brief description | Cer, China, Qing, polychrome |
Physical description | The bottle is a flattened ovoid form with a flared neck and a flat-topped stopper. It is made of porcelain, painted in red, green, blue, yellow and pink moulded as a perforated outer casing over an inner body. The stopper is made of lime-green glass. The moulded decoration depicts the Eight Buddhist Emblems and there are lappet borders around the shoulder and the base. Around the neck there is a key-fret border and a line of dots around the neck-rim and foot. The foot has a shallow curved indentation underneath and a poorly copied Jiaqing (1796-1820) mark in red seal characters. |
Dimensions |
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Styles | |
Marks and inscriptions | (Chinese; seal; base)
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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.1699-1910 |
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Record created | August 17, 1998 |
Record URL |
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