Chinese
Snuff Bottle, early 19th century
Smoky quartz with rutile crystals, height 8 cm (3 1/8 in.)
This tiny, smoky quartz, Chinese snuff bottle is shaped a bit like a stylized human torso with broad shoulders. It is flattened, like the human body, so the front and back are wider than the two sides. It tapers down into a shallow foot and up into a short, slender neck that supports a small, highly polished, domed, green stone stopper. The bottle is pale bronze in color with thousands of needle-like, black crystals irregularly dispersed throughout. They are sparse on one side and abundant on the reverse as well as more concentrated near the bottom than on top.
Little Salon
Commentary
This bottle was created to hold snuff—a flavored powdered tobacco inhaled through the nose. Snuff—introduced to China by European missionaries and merchants—was widely used in the 1800s. Made from a variety of materials and sometimes elaborately decorated, Chinese snuff bottles have an airtight stopper to protect against humidity and a small scoop for removing the tobacco.
The artisan who made this bottle used a variety of smoky quartz with inclusions of the needle-shaped crystals of the mineral rutile, sometimes called Venus-hair stone. Isabella Stewart Gardner may have purchased it on her travels in China in 1883.