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History of Snuff Bottle
Tobacco originated with the Indians of North
America, and they are the earliest people who are absorbed the tobacco. The
cenobite Pani in Spain followed Columbus to the second exploration in 1903, and
went to the Continent, also found that the Indians have this kind of custom
that to absorb the tobacco. The tobacco in North America began to widespread
Europe through sailors, Boanerges and soldiers since 1960, and snuff began to
prevail in Europe. So some maharajas and peers began to absorb the snuff, and
become a kind of vogue in some countries, even some princesses also absorbed the
snuff slinkingly. The princes usually put the snuff into wine and drink it out.
At last, this kind of custom that absorbed the snuff was widely spreaded to
all over the world.
Chinese snuff bottle has a long history of four
hundred years so far. It is a favourite thing as Chinese cultural relic in the
world. Also it’s an epitome of Chinese art. Chinese paintings, foreign
paintings, calligraphy, engrave, inlay, and bowlder, porcelain, lacquer, enamel
and metal, etc art all concentrate in snuff bottle.
The snuff comes to China in Longqing Period of
Ming Dynasty. At that time, people put snuff into the bottle as medicine.
When you want to use it, you can get it from the bottle, it’s very convenient.
The utensil that is filled with snuff was called “snuff bottle”. The popular
snuff makes the snuff bottle develope quickly. People can make different shape
bottles of all kinds of material, such as: Gold, Silver, Copper, Porcelain, Bowlder, Coral, Agate, Jade, Crystal, Wood, Bamboo root, gourd, etc. The snuff
bottle not only has a certain practicability, also as an important present in
international intercourse. According to the history record, Emperor Kang Xi 58 Year(1719)
of Qing Dynasty, Peter the Great of Russia has been deputed to Yisi Mand
Luofu as Chinese ambassador. They visited chinese glass factory of Made
department in Yangxin Palace after they went to China, and saw lots of fine
snuff bottles. The snuff bottles in Qing Dynasty were presents to foreign
kings by the Shengzu emperor of Qing Dynasty through foreign ambassadors.
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