15 April 2023

Beautiful art objects: 18th century tobacco.

Polished English agate snuff box (above)
with fine, 10-carat gold foliage, c1730
1st Dibs

Smoking became normal at every level of British society consumed tobacco in greater quantities from the C17th on. Originally imported from the slave plantations in the Americas, by the middle of the C17th the herba nicotiana-tobacco plant was being also being grown commercially in Europe. Angela McShane showed that this addictive product was profitable, its trade was monopolistic and rife with crime and controversy. Debates raged in the press over tobacco’s effects.

In Counterblaste to Tobacco (1604), King James I dis­couraged smoking, warn­ing that it caused cancer but noted that elite men found life as a non-smoker lonely. In 1619 a procl­amation attempted to ban smoking from alehouses, while in the 1620s taxes were imposed to make tobacco VERY expensive. Yet by the 1630s the industry was too valuable for the government to limit. Key Parliamentarians were developing interests in over­seas plantations.

As Britain got hooked on tobacco, smoking paraphernalia cropped up quickly. Items such as tobacco boxes provide an insight into the anxieties and aspirations of the early modern psyche. Even the clay pipe, light and tobacco could be bought in an ale-house, tavern or coffee house. Personalised tobacco boxes soon became an indis­pen­s­­able accessory for the British smoker. They were noted in printed literature from the early C17th and later in wills.

Smoking and snuffing developed in own elaborate ritual that involved sharing and borrowing. Socialised smoking in alehouses became common but, by the late 1600s, lighting a pipe with a friend at home had also became a ritualised social practice. This soc­iable smoking helped friends build up a close, mutual familiarity.

Anxieties around loss did not end with the obligation to share in convivial company: tobacco boxes were the first thing thieves looked for, as criminal court records stated. Plus there was another sign: many men wore their tobacco box very close to the body. In 1711 a man advertised for his lost ivory-enamel snuff box offering half a guinea reward!

Even items bought off the shelf, complete with general messages, were then personalised with  inscriptions & initials. Once pers­onalised, even the humblest boxes revealed a great deal about an owner’s life, personality, interests, social relationships and trade. A Scottish black-smith had his name, trade and town proudly inscribed on his 1726 tobacco box, celebrating his apprentice­ship's end. 

Like alcohol, tobacco developed its own literary presence. There were many celebrity smokers, including philosopher Thomas Hobbes and scientist Isaac Newton who argued that smoking helped their creativity. The poet George Daniel declared tobacco a Nursing Fame, while Samuel Rowlands needed a continuous supply of tobacco to perfume his writing brain. Book-shaped boxes became especially popular in the C18th, drawing attention to their owners’ bookish interests or to their profession. In 1725 a lawyer and the auditor for Norwich Cathedral, had a brass box that was shaped like a book with elaborate calligraphy on the covers. 

Dutch silver book-shaped tobacco box and cover  
Marks of schoonhoven, c1793

Boxes were often decorated in ways that advertised their owner’s social status, especially a coat of arms. During the herald’s visit to London in 1687, eight men brought silver tobacco boxes as evidence of their family’s standing. Those who could only aspire to arms would make up a design and have it applied to tob­ac­co boxes.

And boxes were ideal for the display of royal arms or portraits that expressed a smoker’s allegiances. To facilitate loyal smoking, the printmaker Peter Stent sold small prints of royalty and other nobility to adorn tobacco boxes. In celebration of Charles II’s coronation in 1661, for example, a special image was developed. 

Silver tobacco box, oval and with hinged lids.  
Francis Harache, London c1755,  
crest and arms of William Wither.

Horn or tortoiseshell boxes began to be moulded over portrait medals, while boxes of every quality were decorated with the royal arms or heads. Or referencing the government of the day. And some boxes were made to encourage dis­loy­alty. In 1718, after the acc­es­sion of the unpopular King George I, an obscene snuff box reflecting on the king was sold openly from shops at the Royal Exchange.

Though the Church never expressly encouraged tobacco, some tobacco boxes lauded the anxieties of Protestantism over the impermanence of human life and the uncert­ainty of salvation. One brass box was inscribed on one side with a relevant verse from Proverbs. The in­scription emphasised the comfort of family and the simple pleasures of a happy Protestant life. At 18 John Pinder attended Cambridge then started his cler­ical career as a deacon in York. He celeb­rated his homecoming by adding the date, name and diocese on a secondhand brass tobacco box.

Personal tobacco boxes could be used as a mirror, a perpetual cal­endar, for carrying letters. Sometimes they were totally readapted eg brass boxes could be converted into a pounce pot used by callig­raphers to dry ink. Tobacco boxes were also family heirlooms and memorials. In 1713, Henry Monck presented his well-known horn box, bought at the local Horn Fair, to the members of the convivial Past Overseers Society, of which he was a founder. He shared its contents with co-members at every tavern meeting.

Tortoiseshell double pipe case with silver mounts, 
and snuff box early C18th, 24 cm.  

The stopper/rammer was another essential piece of equipment, coming in a variety of materials and often taking a figurative form of rel­evance to their original owner. And the tobacco pipe case which was smoker’s pocket-case for holding a short meerschaum or clay pipe. Remember the clay tobacco pipe was popular for a couple of centuries, so many of the pipe cases were wonderful examples of crafts­manship, made from fruitwood, silver, tortoiseshell, boxwood or even leath­er. By the late C18th, ALL tobacco equipment clearly provided a canvas to make statements of ident­ity, allowing us to better under­stand status and social practices around tobacco objects.    

Snuff box of King Frederick II, c1770,





23 comments:

roentare said...

The tobacco boxes are exquisite and extravagant.

Andrew said...

It is hard to get past King James in 1604 I discouraging smoking because it caused cancer when mid twentieth century cigarette manufacturers were denying this fact.

Deb said...

I remember expensive stirling silver cigarette lighters in the 1950s. Smokers must have always loved to surround themselves with beautiful objects.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Hels - fascinating information - beautiful workmanship ... just sad smoking is not good for us. Cheers Hilary

Hels said...

roentare

totally exquisite!! But "extravagant" isn't strong enough. The agate and gold snuff box is worth a fortune (A$37,265) today and was presumably very expensive back in 1730. The quality silver tobacco boxes are much more readily available and therefore at a more reasonable price ($1,000-5000).

Hels said...

Andrew

I don't know about the king, but I do know about doctors :(

Mechanisation and mass marketing in late C19th popularised cigarette smoking, causing a global lung cancer epidemic. But cigarettes were recognised as the cause of the epidemic only in the 1940s and 1950s, with studies from epidemiology, pathology etc. Cigarette manufacturers disputed this evidence in an orchestrated conspiracy to salvage cigarette sales. As late as 1960 only one-third of all US doctors believed the case against cigarettes had been established.

Cigarettes are the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation. They cause c1.5 million lung cancer deaths annually, a number that’ll rise to c2 million annually by 2030.

BMJ, January 01, 2013



Hels said...

Deb

the very expensive sterling silver lighters lit up the darkness of the post war years, didn't they. Of course by the 1950s there was no doubt about the connection with cancer, but if people wanted to smoke, I suppose they at least wanted to be surrounded by beautiful "art objects".

Hels said...

Hilary

the 18th century craftsmanship was so talented that wealthy people seemed thrilled to spend whatever they needed to, to show off their own connoisseurship.

I suppose if I was inviting important guests I wanted to impress to dinner, I would put my most treasured Huguenot silver in the centre of the diningroom table.

William Kendall said...

I'm fascinated by James being aware of that.

Parnassus said...

Hello Hels, My guess is that a large percentage of the extravagant snuffboxes were gifts. In Bazza's blog we were just commenting on the beautiful or fascinating collectibles that came about as the result of vice activities. I do collect snuffboxes myself, but mostly the Victorian black papier mache ones. In China many medicines were packaged in containers that could be reused as snuff bottles, thus replacing a perhaps medically dubious substance with a unquestionably deleterious one. Also, snuff, despite its 'delicate' reputation, has to be the most disgusting form of tobacco. Imagine sneezing out that vile tobacco residue into a fine handkerchief!
--Jim

DUTA said...

Pity, tobacco and smoking are bad for people's health! The boxes, pipes, ashtrays and other items that came with it, were sometimes little pieces of valuable art.

Hels said...

William

I also find it amazing!

Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite, popularised tobacco in the late 1570s but he had a hostile relationship with King James. James blamed him for introducing the foul weed into the royal court, saying Raleigh stank. So James hit tobacco with huge taxes. And James published his A Counterblaste to Tobacco (1604), describing smoking as a savage custom, hateful to the nose and making a kitchen of the inward parts of man, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous and oily kind of soot.

However since irrefutable scientific evidence linking tobacco use to nasty or terminal medical conditions only emerged in the mid C20th, James’ use of the word cancer was not very specific.

‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco’: James I and his Aversion to Smoking
13th Oct 2014


Hels said...

Parnassus

I think the reason tobacco art objects were expensive and beautiful was not to hide the icky stuff inside, but for men to show their classy male friends that they were all cultured gentlemen. Of course they could have used cheap containers, but that would have been very plebeian.

Hels said...

DUTA

true true. I am allergic to burning tobacco and would never go ANYWHERE near a smoking person, yet early modern smoking art objects can be very beautiful and very valuable. I think I might even sell my house to buy one of the paintings of smoking companies eg The Smokers 1636 by Adriaen Brouwer.

Britta said...

Dear Helen, thank you for that great article!
Our German King Friedrich der Große (Frederick the Great) - "Der Alte" Fritz - normally was against luxury, but he had a very valuable collection of snuff boxes - "made of semi-precious stones, mounted in gold, and set with diamonds", nowadays you can see eight of them in the permanent exhibition, The Silver Vault, in The Old Palace, Schloss Charlottenburg.

Frederick I, The Great, son of the cruel Soldier King Friedrich Wilhelm I, and grandson of Friedrich I, who hold the famous "Tabakkollegium" - abhorred smoking, but took snuff tobacco.

(The Soldatenkönig was incredibly cruel: he forced his son Frederick I to watch the decapitation of his best friend and lover Hans Hermann von Katte, with whom he had tried to flee from Germany).


















Hels said...

Oh Britta, thank you!!

I have seen snuff boxes framed in gold or silver before, and even those with beautiful enamel paintings. But I have never seen snuff boxes encrusted with large diamonds. King Frederick II presumably had the good taste to tell the jewellers exactly what he wanted, and also the money to pay for it. Next time I am in Berlin, The Silver Vault will be the first place I visit.

By the way, my master's thesis was about Huguenot silver art from the 1680-1730 era.

My name is Erika. said...

This sounds like a really interesting book.Who knew smoking became such a big deal so early on. And Issac Newton smoked?? I had a degree in science and had never heard that, so how interesting. This is such an interesting post Hels. I'm not a smoke but it's always been a wonder how it came to be what it is, and thought it might have just been the big companies trying to get rich. Happy new week.

Hels said...

Erika

Yes the tobacco and cigarette companies wanted to make big profits, but the key issue for us today is that the medical profession were often very supportive of their patients smoking. In fact until the 1960s, many patients were _prescribed_ cigarettes by the doctor. The cause of this was because tobacco brands hired throat doctors to explain that dust, germs and lack of menthol were to blame when it came to illnesses, not cigarettes. In fact many doctors believed cigarettes weren’t harmful at all and actually improved digestion!

My very intelligent grandfather ALWAYS smoked a pipe and of course got cancer of the mouth and tongue :(

jabblog said...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this fascinating article.

James I was ahead of his time - what a pity people ignored his advice, but if they had, we would not now be able to admire the considerable artistry and workmanship that went into the various tobacco-related paraphernalia.

bazza said...

Like others here, I found the fact about James l being against cancer-causing tobacco to be astonishing. (James was an oddity; peace-loving and intelligent yet he personally oversaw the torture of women who were believed to be witches and, without James, Shakespeare might not have written Macbeth!)
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s bashfully blatant Blog ‘To Discover Ice’

Hels said...

jabblog and bazza

I didn't like King James I very much, but he was spot on. Without using the concept of cancer, he wrote "A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless" (my spelling).

By 1614 the Virginia Colony, which King James had approved, was shipping tobacco at a great rate of knots ..so that production rose rapidly. It is therefore ironic that tobacco cultivation lay the foundation for the success of England's American colonies.

mem said...

This is so interesting . I have a great interest in nicotine as it does indeed enhance concentration and creativity through its effects on the brain .I had no idea that alarm bells were ringing so early on in its history in the Europe
The problem is the smoke which is inhaled to get nicotine which itself is highly addictive but not particularly dangerous .The smoke is the killer hence the idea that vaping is a safer option .I wonder whether the shorter life span of these early smokers meant that they didn't on the whole, suffer the horrors of long term smoking?
Apparent Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to Europe from the Americas where it was used in ceremonies by the American First people .Our Australia First Nations people also used nicotine as it occurs in some of our native plants .
I have read that Raleigh was smoking a quiet pipe when one of his servants threw a bucket of water over him concerned that he was on fire ! I don't know if this true but its a funny story! Apparently this happened while he was living in Yougal in Ireland in a house which still exists . This house was also allegedly the first place where potatoes were grown , also an import from the Americas.Raleigh lived here for a number of years and was mayor of the town . I read about this while researching the history of the house which later became a residence for some very distant ancestors of mine .

Hels said...

mem

when I was at uni, all the learning was about fine arts, not decorative arts. Once I became a bit more realist about normal people affording and loving decorative art, all sorts of beautiful things attracted my attention - silver, gold, porcelain etc.

Objects related to tobacco introduced more historical fascination. As you say, Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to Europe from the Americas where it was used in ceremonies by the American First people. Even less known was that our First Nations people also used nicotine from local plants.