A Rare ‘Erotic’ Snuff Box 

A Rare ‘Erotic’ Snuff Box 
Painted with a scene of a ‘rosy’ cheeked Sailor, on a Pacific Island, in an ‘aroused’ state, offering for exchange with a seated female Islander a green ‘silk’ or ‘velvet’ ribbon in exchange for his advances, while she raises her red silk skirt and accepts the ribbon, her hair adorned with feathers and jewels hanging around her neck, his fellow shipmates in a small rowing boat nearby with their ship further out to sea 
Attributed to Raven
Papier-Maché
England 
Circa 1800


Provenance:
Ex Michael Graham-Stuart
Ex Private collection

By the middle of the 19th century ‘snuffing’ would no longer be a fashionable habit, but in 1800’s there was no sign that in only a few decades snuff taking would be replaced in polite society by the puffing of cigars and pipes, and by the new fad of cigarette smoking. Amongst the aristocracy, the habit flourished and King George III had snuff specially blended for him by the tobacconists Fribourg and Treyer which he bought by the pound. Thus the demand continued for beautiful boxes to contain the exotic powder. Lord Petersham, an avid collector of both snuff and boxes was said to have ‘used a different box on every day of the year’.
     Although erotic scenes on snuff boxes, usually hidden inside, often in secret compartments, tend to be of Europeans, both English and Continental, it is very rare, if not unique to find a snuff box displaying an erotic scene of a ‘native’ Pacific Islander and a European, English sailor.