Chinese Snuff Bottles - Asian Decoration
Tobacco arrived in China with European traders (in the seventeenth century). At that time tobacco was not smoked, but was used as pulverised tobacco leaves. It served to clear the airway. However, the Chinese quikly began to smoke the tobacco. Then they start to made chinese snuff-bottles to preserve the tobacco. Chinese snuff-bottles also allows the transport of medicines. Tobacco was considered as an effective remedy for headaches, colds and many other illnesses, the powdered tobacco was dispensed in a small bottle, as were most other medicines in China, rather than in boxes as was the European custom.
Chinese Erotica Snuff-Bottles and Porcelain Snuff-bottles
China Snuff-bottles are different from the European snuff-bottles. The chinese snuff-bottles serve to protect the tobacco from humidity. Their use was only for the elite. (Chinese Emperor, mandarins, officials and scholars). From the eighteenth century, Chinese snuff-box becomes popular and all the Chinese strt sniffing tobacco. Many materials are used for the manufacture of snuff-bottles. There are currently made of chinese porcelain , bone, jade, ivory, lacquer, red coral, wood, glass ... On our website we sell two kinds of snuff-bottles. The porcelain snuff bottles and the glass snuff-bottles (the glass is painted on the inside and by transparency it is visible on the outside). The glass snuff-boxes appeared in the early twentieth century.
