Snuff bottle with erotic engraving · complete spoon stopper

A Chinese snuff bottle in pale bone: a flat body incised on both sides with fine drawings whose lines are filled with dark pigment. With it the original stopper set with stones — green, blue and red in a filigree mount — carrying the small spoon.

The drawing shows an erotic scene: two figures on a couch, framed by an interior with window frames and a curtain. Such images belong to the Chinese tradition of chunhua — «spring pictures» — found on scrolls, in albums and on snuff bottles. They were private matters, not decoration.

The spoon is fixed in the stopper and dips into the bottle when closed. In use you draw it out with the portion of snuff on it. That is the classic construction — a snuff bottle without its spoon stopper is incomplete, and most have lost it over the decades. Here it is present.

The lines are cut and rubbed with dark pigment — the method is called scrimshaw and comes originally from whalers working tooth and bone on long voyages. It was taken up in Asia for export work.

• Bone, engraved and inked both sides
• Stopper with coloured stones in a filigree mount
• Original spoon on the stopper
• Hand-sized

Good, engraving clear, stopper seats, spoon undamaged, minor age marks on the body.