Rene Lalique

Rene Lalique was born in the 19th century, pre-industrialized Europe. It was a time before light bulbs, and telephones, before automobiles and washing machines and electricity. But by the time of his death in 1945 at the dawn of the atomic age, he would have completed two careers spanning two different centuries. In 1900 at the age of 40, he was the most celebrated jeweler in the world and an art nouveau artist and designer of magnificent proportions. But by 1925 at the height of the art deco era he was the most celebrated glassmaker in the world. In between Lalique would leave his contemporaries behind as he turned from creating unique jewelry and objects d'art, to the mass production of innovative and usable art glass. He brought glass into the home of everyday people where it had never been before, and he worked out the industrial techniques to mass produce his useful art glass objects on a scale and cost to complement the spreading industrial revolution and resulting worldwide appetite for his products.

Lalique is remembered for his jewelry and his glass. But his greatest accomplishments were born in his recognition of the changing world in which he lived. His life spanned the entire period from the Civil War to World War II and as his world changed, so did Lalique. His amazing turn of careers and fields put him in the forefront of the new mass production. He was a jeweler, he was a glassmaker, he was an artist. But his great accomplishment was to combine those talents with foresight and innovation to not just serve markets, but to create them. In the process, Lalique would become a world class industrialist with an industrial ability on par with any other of his rich talents and achievements.

Yosl Bergner (Jewish Painter)

Yosl Bergner was born in 1920 in Austria, and spent his childhood in Poland. The son of a poet and a singer, Bergner took painting lessons before immigrating to Australia in 1937 as a seventeen year old. He struggled to survive in Australia, undertaking a series of menial jobs while studying painting at the National Gallery Art School, Melbourne. He painted images which were essentially autobiographical, views of a dark, bleak urban environment, inhabited by lonely and dispossessed people, works which inspired many young Melbourne artists during the 1940s. The compassion, humanity and deep sincerity of his art attracted immediate and deep attention.

During the second world war Bergner served in the Australian Army Labour Company at Tocumwal 1941-1946 and afterwards gained a Commonwealth Rehabilitation Scholarship to return to his studies at the National Gallery Art School. He left Australia in 1948, traveling first to Paris and then to Israel, where he currently lives and works.

Bergner's canvases draw their images from his childhood world, from Yiddish and from the Jewish culture of Poland. Although he did not personally experience the Holocaust, his works are overshadowed by the trauma of the Jewish refugee. Broken furniture and kitchen utensils, clowns, kings and angels, characters from Kafka's stories, children's toys, flowers and pioneers are only part of his wide range of themes. Bergner has designed scenery and costumes for the Yiddish and Hebrew Theaters, particularly for the plays of Nissim Aloni, and has illustrated many books.

The acme of Bergner's paintings is his allegorical works; he uses kitchen tools such as squashed pots, oil lamps, wrecks and cracked jugs and he anthropomorphizes them. These old instruments symbolize distorted and poor world of wars, secrets and darkness. Bergner participated in the Venice Biennaials in 1956, 1958 and 1962, and at the Sao Paolo Biennial in 1957. In 1980, he was awarded the Israel Prize for Painting.

Art Deco

Art Deco is a movement in the decorative arts and architecture that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style. Art Deco design represented modernism turned into fashion. Its products included both individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares. The intention was to create a sleek and anti-traditional elegance that symbolized wealth and sophistication.

Among the formative influences on Art Deco were Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Decorative ideas came from American Indian, Egyptian, and early classical sources as well as from nature. Characteristic motifs included nude female figures, animals, foliage, and sunrays, all in conventionalized forms. Although the style went out of fashion during World War II, beginning in the late 1960s there was a renewed interest in Art Deco design.

The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a streamlined look, ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms and unusually varied.

Pewter

Pewter is an alloy whose main element is tin. Copper, lead, bismuth, zinc, and antimony added in varying amounts give the mixture its variable weight and hardness.

It was used mainly in the home. It was the common table ware of Colonial America in the 18th century and was used well into the 19th century. Nearly every conceivable form was made of pewter: plates, basins, serving dishes, mugs, tankards, pots and more.

How was it made?

Most pewter objects were made by casting the melted alloy into molds, which were made most frequently of bronze, brass, and bell metal. The products of the molds were then trimmed, spun on a lathe, and soldered together to make the finished piece. 

How old is pewter?

Pewter has been in use for several thousand years. The Egyptians, Greeks, and the Chinese were proficient in the art of making pewter. Roman pewter has been excavated in Britain, suggesting a pewter industry of reasonable size in the third and fourth centuries.

Netsuke

Netsuke are miniature sculptures that were invented in 17th-century Japan to serve a practical function (the two Japanese characters ne+tsuke mean "root" and "to attach"). Traditional Japanese garments—robes called kosode and kimono—had no pockets; however, men who wore them needed a place to store their personal belongings, such as pipes, tobacco, money, seals, or medicines.

Their solution was to place such objects in containers (called sagemono) hung by cords from the robes' sashes (obi). The containers may have been pouches or small woven baskets, but the most popular were beautifully crafted boxes. Whatever the form of the container, the fastener that secured the cord at the top of the sash was a carved, button-like toggle called a netsuke.

Netsuke evolved over time from being strictly utilitarian into objects of great artistic merit and an expression of extraordinary craftsmanship. Such objects have a long history reflecting the important aspects of Japanese folklore and life. Netsuke production was most popular during the Edo period in Japan, around 1615-1868. Today, the art lives on, and some modern works can command high prices in the UK, Europe, the USA, Japan and elsewhere. Inexpensive yet faithful reproductions are available in museums and souvenir shops.

Porcelain dolls

Porcelain dolls are made out of bisque porcelain. Bisque is unglazed porcelain which gives the dolls realistic skin look and texture.

Now days, the terms porcelain doll, china doll and bisque doll are used to describe the same thing. Usually, only collectors will know the difference between them. For instance- china dolls are made of glazed porcelain while bisque dolls are made of unglazed porcelain.

The dolls head is painted with a few layers to create skin tones and realistic look. The Dolls bodies hardly ever made out of bisque because of its Fragility and weigh.

The porcelain dolls were popular in the 19th century with French and German dolls.

Today the dolls are collectible and can be very valuable, depending on the quality and condition of the doll.

Mammoth ivory

Mammoths were always significantly in the art of humans. At ancient times, Cave men realistically draw them on the walls of their caves. The Mammoths we know today are those mammoth that were trapped in ice crevasses. Covered over, frozen, and their bodies were remarkably well preserved for almost 30,000 years.

Mammoth ivory has been found in Europe, North America and Asia since the end of the last ice age. The wooly mammoth roamed across the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska during the ice age when parts of Alaska and the Yukon in Canada were free of ice.

In earlier times, mammoth ivory hunters were concentrated in the northern part of European Russia, but over the centuries the area where it can be found easily has gradually moved north and east, following the Arctic Circle.

Any tusks that can be restored are brought back to their original form. Other pieces are polished and sold to collectors and artists around the world. The majority of pieces of mammoth ivory are sold as they are great for display. Some pieces are good for scrimshaw, carving, knife and gun handles or even pool cues. There are many grades of mammoth ivory: From small chips all the way up to large tusks.

Anime

Japanese word for cartoon and animation. In Japan, anime refers to any and all animation or cartoon - regardless of the genre, style, or nation of origin. Outside of Japan the word anime has come to refer specifically to animation of Japanese origins, or animation of a particular style.

The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917, and production of anime works in Japan has since continued to increase steadily. The characteristic anime art style emerged in the 1960s and spread internationally in the late twentieth century, developing a large domestic and international audience. Anime is distributed theatrically, by television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the internet and is classified into numerous genres targeting diverse broad and niche audiences.

While it is clear that the word anime derives from a western term, there is some debate as to its exact origin. One very common interpretation is that it comes from the French term for cartoon, "dessin animé", which translates literally to "animated drawing". However, others believe it's simply a contraction of the word "animation" as pronounced in English.

The full word for animation in Japan is "animeshon" which follows the English pronunciation, not the French one. Combined with the fact that Japanese have a habit of incorporating English words into their language much more often than other western languages, this makes a strong case that "anime" is actually the short form of the Japanization of the English word "animation."

There is much controversy as to whether or not the label "anime" can be extended to non-Japanese animation that looks like Japanese animation. Whether or not the label can be extended to non-Japanese animation depends largely on the technical definition of anime that one chose to accept.

Antoni Gaudi

Born on 25 June 1852 in Camp de Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain. His father and both his grandparents were boilermakers, and as Gaudí himself recounted, he learned his special skill in dealing with three-dimensional space by observing boilermakers at work. Another key fact in the architect's childhood was his delicate health which forced him to spend long periods convalescing at home. There he spent many hours contemplating nature, drawing lessons that he was to apply later in his architecture.

After starting his secondary education at the Escolapian School in Reus, Antoni Gaudí moved to Barcelona in 1869. In the Catalan capital he completed his schooling and after meeting the entrance requirements in 1873 enrolled in the Provincial School of Architecture. Although an indifferent student he showed early indications of genius, opening the way to collaboration with some of his lecturers. After gaining his architect's diploma in January 1878, Gaudí set up his own firm.

Gaudí's rise to be one of the most outstanding architects of the first Modernista generation was meteoric. In the final decades of the nineteenth century when he completed the Güell Palace he was already one of the most famous architects in Barcelona. This work saw the end of Gaudí’s first youthful phase, marked by a personal revision of Gothic and Muslim architecture and including buildings like Casa Vicens, El Capricho, the Güell Estate buildings, the crypt of the Sagrada Familia, the School of the Teresianas and the Episcopal Palace in Astorga. From 1890 onwards Gaudí perfected his understanding of architectural space and the applied arts, giving his work unique and unsuspected qualities that stood out from the other Modernist architecture of his day.

In 1914 he abandoned all other work to concentrate on the Sagrada Familia. Aware that he would not live to see it completed, he did his best to leave it at an advanced stage for coming generations. In fact, Gaudí was only to see one of its towers in its final form. On 10 June 1926 the architect died from injuries suffered after being run over by a tram. Two days later he was buried at the Sagrada Familia.

The Discovery of Glass

Natural glass has existed since the beginnings of time, formed when certain types of rocks melt as a result of high-temperature phenomena such as volcanic eruptions, lightning strikes or the impact of meteorites, and then cool and solidify rapidly. Stone-age man is believed to have used cutting tools made of obsidian (a natural glass of volcanic origin).

According to historians, Phoenician merchants transporting stone actually discovered glass in the region of Syria around 5000 BC. The merchants, after landing, rested cooking pots on blocks of nitrate placed by their fire. With the intense heat of the fire, the blocks eventually melted and mixed with the sand of the beach to form an opaque liquid.

The earliest man-made glass objects are thought to date back to around 3500 BC, with finds in Egypt and Eastern Messopotamia. In the third millennium, in central Mesopotamia, the basic raw materials of glass were being used principally to produce glazes on pots and vases. The discovery has been coincidental, with calciferous sand finding its way into an overheated kiln and combining with soda to form a colored glaze on the ceramics. It was then, above all, Phoenician merchants and sailors who spread this new art along the coasts of the Mediterranean.

The oldest fragments of glass vases date back to the 16th century BC and were found in Mesopotamia. Hollow glass production was also evolving around this time in Egypt, and there is evidence of other ancient glassmaking activities emerging independently in Mycenae (Greece), China and North Tyrol.

Dale Chihuly

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country at the University of Wisconsin.

In 1968, Dale Chihuly was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work at the "Venini" factory in Venice, Italy. While in Venice, Chihuly observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today. 

After an automobile accident in 1976 in which he lost the sight in his left eye, Chihuly relinquished the gaffer (chief glassblower) position and turned over that position to William Morris. Utilizing Morris' substantial talent and physical strength, Chihuly developed the large scale, multi-colored forms known as the Macchia series.

His work is included in over two hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including seven honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Chihuly has created many well-known series of works, among them the Baskets, Persians, and Seaforms, but he is also celebrated for large architectural installations. In 1995 he embarked on the multi-faceted international project, "Chihuly over Venice," which involved working in glass factories in Finland, Ireland and Mexico, with the resultant sculptures installed over the canals and piazze of Venice.
 
Chihuly’s lifelong affinity for glasshouses has grown into a series of exhibitions within botanical settings. His garden exhibition was first presented in 2001 at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. 
In 2005, Chihuly exhibited at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, near London, and at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida in both 2006 and 2007. An exhibition at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania opened in May, 2007.

What Are Crystals?

A crystal is a hard, solid substance made of molecules that bond together in specific patterns to form an interesting shape that has straight edges and flat surfaces. Not all crystals have the same shape, there are actually lots of different kinds of crystals, and each kind has its own special shape. Beautiful crystals are used for jewelry, like diamonds or emeralds. Crystals are often transparent, which means that you can see through them sort of like you can see through glass. Other kinds have beautiful colors.

What a crystal is made of actually depends on what kind of crystal it is - for example, salt and snowflakes are actually formed out of different kinds of crystals. Snowflakes are made from crystals formed by frozen water. Salt crystals are formed by some chemical elements which join together in a crystal shape. Crystals can be formed in several different ways. Most crystals are formed through evaporation. Some types of crystals are formed from melted rock in the earth: When the hot rock cools gradually, it will sometimes form crystals. Geodes are round rocks that are formed when bubbles are trapped in the melted rock. As the bubbles cool down, crystals grow inside of the bubble of rock.

As a crystal grows, the pattern that makes it a certain shape will be repeated over and over, so the crystal will always keep the same shape as it gets bigger. The chemical elements that a crystal is made of are what tell the crystal what shape it will be. A lot of crystals might seem to look alike, but what elements the crystal is made out of will make it a unique shape and color. Even the same element can make different crystals, based on conditions such as temperature and light and what other elements are around.

Shunga

Shunga is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are usually executed in woodblock print format. Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring which is a common euphemism for sex.

Shunga were produced between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth century by ukiyo-e artists, since they sold more easily and at a higher price than their ordinary work. Shunga prints were produced and sold either as single sheets or—more frequently—in book form. Shunga was also produced in hand scroll format, called kakemono-e. This format was also popular, though more expensive as the scrolls had to be individually painted.

It is thought that shunga were initially inspired by illustrations in Chinese medicine manuals. Zhou Fang, the great T'ang Dynasty Chinese erotic painter, is thought to also have been influential. He, like many erotic artists of his time and place, tended to exaggerate the size of the genital organs, a common shunga topos. While the literal meaning of the word, 'shunga,' is significant, it is in fact a contraction of shunkyū-higi-ga, the Japanese pronunciation for Chinese sets of twelve scrolls depicting the twelve sexual acts that the crown prince had to carry out as an expression of yin yang.

Following the aesthetics of everyday life, Edo period shunga varied widely in its depictions of sexuality. It was enjoyed by all social groups in the Edo period, almost all ukiyo-e artists made shunga at some point in their careers, and it did not detract from their prestige as artists. Thinking about shunga as a kind of medieval pornography is misleading.

Fabergé Egg

A Fabergé Egg is one of a limited number of jeweled eggs created by Peter Carl Fabergé and his company from 1885 to 1917. The most famous of the eggs are the ones made for the Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers, often called the 'Imperial' Fabergé eggs.
The House of Fabergé made about 50 eggs and 43 have survived.

The first Fabergé egg was crafted for Tsar Alexander III, who had decided to give his wife, the Empress Maria Fedorovna, an Easter Egg in 1885, possibly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their betrothal.
It is believedthat the Tsar’s inspiration for the piece was an egg owned by the Empress’s aunt, Princess Vilhelmine Marie of Denmark, which had captivated Maria’s imagination in her childhood. 
Known as the Hen Egg, the first Fabergé egg is crafted from gold. Its opaque white enameled "shell"

opens to reveal its first surprise, a matte yellow-gold yolk. 
This in turn opens to reveal a multicolored gold hen that also opens. 
The hen contained a minute diamond replica of the imperial crown from which a small ruby pendant was suspended, but these last two elements have been lost.

Empress Maria was so delighted by the gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a "goldsmith by special appointment to the Imperial Crown" and commissioned another egg the next year.
After that, Peter Carl Fabergé was apparently given complete freedom for the design of future imperial Easter eggs, and their designs became more elaborate. 
According to Fabergé family lore, not even the Tsar knew what form they would take—the only requirement was that each contains a surprise. 
Once Peter Carl Fabergé had approved an initial design, the work was carried out by a team of craftsmen.

After Alexander III's death on November 1, 1894, his son Nicholas II presented a Fabergé egg to both his wife, Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, and his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna. 
Eggs were made each year except 1904 and 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War.

The Imperial eggs enjoyed great fame, and Fabergé was commissioned to make similar eggs for a few private clients, including the Duchess of Marlborough, the Rothschild family and the Yusupovs. 

Katana Sword

Historically, katana were one of the traditionally made Japanese swords that were used in feudal Japan, commonly referred to as a "samurai sword".

At the end of the 14th century due to the “Tokugawa shoguns regulations”, the katana was effectively standardized. However the 200 years of fighting before had seen a decline in the quality of the swords made as mass production was more important than the quality. As a result some of the old methods of sword making were lost. The katanas made in the years to come were never able to surpass the quality of the old swords.

The katana is characterized by its distinctive appearance: a curved, slender, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. It has historically been associated with the samurai of feudal Japan, and some historians have said that katana were among the finest cutting weapons in world military history.

The katana is generally defined as the standard sized, moderately curved Japanese sword with a blade length greater than 60 cm.

The relatively peaceful times which Japan entered was accompanied by the creation of a higher quality of the katana. They were called Shinto - “new sword”. During the 16th -17th centuries sword smiths tried to rediscover the old techniques as the Shinto blade was stayed inferior to the old Tachi (Koto) blades.

Inrō

inro, Japanese inrō, is a traditional Japanese case for holding small objects and worn on the girdle. Because traditional Japanese garb lacked pockets, objects were often carried by hanging them from the obi, or sash.These objects, probably originally imported from China, were used as containers for seals and medicine. About the 16th century they were adapted by the Japanese for holding tobacco, confections, and other small items and became a part of the traditional Japanese male costume.

Inro are generally oval or cylindrical in section and usually measure 5 cm in width and from 6.4 cm to 10 cm in length. They have two to five compartments. The compartments are held together by a cord that is laced through cord runners down one side, under the bottom, and up the opposite side. The inro is secured by a bead (ojime), and kept from slipping through the kimono sash by a netsuke, a small carved object at the end of the cords.

Early inro were made of a variety of materials, including wood, ivory, and bone and were usually covered with plain black lacquer. After the middle of the 17th century the more elaborate techniques of carved, painted, and gold lacquerwork were commonly used, making these objects some of the finest examples of Japanese craftsmanship in the Tokugawa (Edo) period (1603–1867).

Inrō, like the ojime and netsuke they were associated with, evolved over time from strictly utilitarian articles into objects of high art and immense craftsmanship.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (born Aug. 6, 1928, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S. died Feb. 22, 1987, New York, N.Y.) U.S. artist and filmmaker. The son of Czech immigrants, Warhol graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, in 1949. He then went to New York City, where he worked as a commercial illustrator. Warhol began painting in the late 1950s and received sudden notoriety in 1962, when he exhibited paintings of Campbell's soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, and wooden replicas of Brillo soap-pad boxes. By 1963 he was mass-producing these purposely banal images of consumer goods by means of photographic silk screen prints; he then began printing endless variations of portraits of celebrities in garish colours. The silk screen technique was ideally suited to Warhol, for the repeated image was reduced to a dehumanized cultural icon that reflected both the supposed emptiness of American material culture and the artist's emotional distance from the practice of his art. Warhol's work placed him in the forefront of the emerging Pop art movement in the United States. As the 1960s progressed, Warhol devoted more of his energy to filmmaking. His underground films are known for their inventive eroticism, plotless boredom, and inordinate length (up to 25 hours). Throughout the 1970s and until his death he continued to produce prints depicting political and Hollywood celebrities, and he involved himself in a wide range of advertising illustrations and other commercial art projects. He was one of the most famous and important American cultural figures of the late 20th century, and the effects of his conceptions of art and celebrity continue to be felt.

Portrait Painting

Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. The term is usually applied to the depiction of human subjects. In addition to painting, portraits can also be made in other media such as etching, lithography, photography, video and digital media.

The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and private persons, or they may be inspired by admiration or affection for the subject. Portraits are often important state and family records, as well as remembrances.

Historically, portrait paintings have primarily memorialized the rich and powerful. Over time, however, it became more common for middle-class patrons to commission portraits of their families and colleagues. Today, portrait paintings are still commissioned by governments, corporations, groups, clubs, and individuals.

Portrait art has taken many forms; variation in styles and tastes has contributed as much to portrait art as to other modes of artistic expression. The Egyptians made sculptured monuments that were idealized portraits of their monarchs intended to grant them immortality. Such ideal likenesses were painted onto sarcophagi of lesser persons as well.

Master painters such as Pollaiuolo and Piero della Francesca excelled at the profile view. The Flemish and German masters developed the three-quarter and frontal portrait types, which allowed greatly increased contact between subject and viewer and enhanced the illusion of vitality. These conventions were soon adopted generally. The powerful equestrian portrait was developed in Italy. Verrocchio's sculpture of Bartolomeo Colleoni is an outstanding example of this genre, whose major practitioners also included Donatello, Titian, Uccello, Velázquez, and Bernini.

The portrait subject was eventually revealed at full length by such masters as Holbein, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, thereby increasing enormously the compositional possibilities. The Italian mannerists Bronzino, Pontormo, and Parmigianino expressed a cold splendor in their studies of the aristocracy. 

Trinket boxes

A trinket box is also known by other terms such as jewel case or casket and has been used from the medieval times on the dressers. 
These are small boxes that are embellished on the top in a variety of designs and have a hollow space or concealment when opened.
These small boxes are perfect to keep jewels and other trinkets.
The adornments on the top of the trinket boxes vary according to the designers and clients whims and fancies.
From gold to iron, all metals have been used to create trinket boxes. Other materials that have been used to make these jewel cases are wood, paper mache, stone, ivory and porcelain.

Since the 17th century onward, there has been a spurt in the production of trinket boxes since the Limoges Box was introduced in France.
As it was manufactured by the King’s own kilns, it became a rage with the nobility.

The spread of porcelain ware, art of enameling and Art metal ware gave a further impetus to the popularity of trinket box manufacturing.
Most popular trinket boxes have been classified as Art Metal wares and were created in cast metal and antimonial lead and later electroplated in silver, gold, copper and even ivory. In the late 19th century,
trinket boxes were a necessity on the vanity cases and dressers of women all over the world.

The most popular trinket boxes and probably the most expensive were created for the Russian Tsar from 1890s to early 1900s.
These exquisite gold and precious gems studded trinket boxes are better known as Faberge Eggs. Crafted by the royal jeweler, Carl Faberge, each Easter egg shape box was presented to the Tsarina every year.

Today numerous equally intricate trinket boxes are available crafted by expert craftsmen that are close replicas of the original boxes in a variety of prices

Snuff bottles

The Chinese began to use snuff bottles to hold powdered tobacco during the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1912). Although smoking tobacco was made illegal during that time, snuff was allowed because it was considered a remedy for common illnesses like colds, headaches and stomach disorders.It was carried in a small bottle, like other medicines. It is comparable to the snuff box used in Europe.

Tobacco was introduced to the court at Beijing sometime during the mid to late-16th century. After the Qing Dynasty made smoking tobacco illegal, the use of snuff and snuff bottles spread through the upper class, and by the end of the 17th century, the use of snuff was a social ritual. Eventually, the trend spread to the rest of the country and into every social class. It was common to offer a pinch of snuff as a greeting for friends and relatives. Snuff bottles soon became an object of beauty and a way to represent status— the rarer and finer the snuff bottle, the higher the owner’s status. Snuff bottle manufacturing hit its peak during the 18th century.

The use of snuff died out soon after the establishment of the Republic of China. However, replica snuff bottles are still made, and can be purchased in souvenir shops, flea markets and museum gift shops. Original snuff bottles from the Qing period are highly desirable for both serious collectors and museums. A good bottle is not only exquisitely beautiful but should have a wonderful tactile quality. After all, snuff bottles were made to be held. The most fascinating snuff bottles are those with paintings on the inside of them.

Is Ivory trade legal?

Due to the rapid decline in the populations of the animals that produce it, the importation and sale of elephant ivory in many countries is banned or severely restricted.
On the other hand, legal trade in ivory is shore by the fact that it does not endanger any living species but only harvests the remains of over 10,000- 30,000 years old fossilized mammoth ivory.

Trade in the ivory from the tusks of dead mammoths has occurred for 300 years and continues to be legal.
In the recent years, global warming and intense melting of the tundra has exposed remains of innumerable raw ivory and mammoth bones that are ecological friendly and fill in the gap created by banning the elephant ivory.
Some estimates suggest that 10 million mammoths are still buried in Siberia.

The use and trade of elephant ivory have become controversial because they have contributed to seriously declining elephant populations in many countries.
Owing to the rapid decline in the populations of the animals that produce it, the importation and sale of ivory in many countries is banned or severely restricted.

Mammoth experts believe that the trade in extinct mammoth ivory is a good way of preserving ecological rich material which would have otherwise been ravaged by time and weather,
while over hundreds of tons of mammoth ivory is still lost in Russia due to poor preservation or over exposure due to natural weather conditions.

Mammoth ivory is the only type of ivory that is allowed legally to enter USA and many other countries.
Even conservationists are happy with this trade as it utilizes raw ivory that would have been wasted otherwise and also saves elephants from illegal poaching to cater to the demand of ivory.

"I want to buy ivory, but how would I know it's real?"

There are many items on the Market today being represented and sold as ivory that are actually bone or plastic.

That is why we collected a several methods to help you recognize if the item is ivory or a fake:

* The piece weight: Ivory feels heavy and dense when you hold it in your hand. If the item feels lightweight it's either bone or ivory. Bone can have the exact same weight as ivory. Compare the weight to similar items that you know to be ivory. Moreover, if you see spots or other odd markings, though, it probably isn't ivory.

* Ivory does not have pits or multiple darkened spots, unlike bone.
To test for this, find a pin and heat its tip until it is very hot. then touch it to the surface of the material. The results will show you if it is ivory or plastic.

* Feel the item texture: Ivory is lustrous and has a smooth surface. If the surface of the piece feels rutted and pockmarked, it might not be ivory.

* Synthetic ivory: Use a magnifying glass and look for air bubble indentations or small craters that appear from being poured in a mold. Synthetic Ivory will have grain lines in one direction, but when looking at the opposite angle, you will not see any lines; the ends of the lines on a synthetic piece will make a speckled pattern. This surface is usually the bottom of the piece. 

* The hot pin test: Plastic object dents whenever a very hot object touches its surface. 

* Plastic contains a single line that sticks out and goes around the material until it meets. This comes from the mold that holds the plastic together.

* Bones: Unlike teeth and tusks, bones have tiny canals that run through them to carry nutrients and house nerves and other organic material.

* Bottom of a piece: Since many collectors and dealers look first at the bottom of a piece, genuine ivory will only have the signature of the artist since the grain confirms the pieces authenticity and value.

* Getting the Item Tested by a Professional: To leave absolutely no question about your item, take it to a forensics lab and have it chemically tested by a scientist. The cellular structure of ivory is different from that of bone, but lab equipment is required to determine which is which with finality.