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Snuff: Snuff is finely ground tobacco mixed with scents. Spanish royalty introduced the habit to England. The taking of snuff replaced smoking by the early eighteenth century when the damaging effects of smoking became more and more apparent. By 1720, the production of silver tobacco boxes had virtually ceased and the gold snuff box was rising in popularity.

Snuff: Snuff is finely ground tobacco mixed with scents. Spanish royalty introduced the habit to England. The taking of snuff replaced smoking by the early eighteenth century when the damaging effects of smoking became more and more apparent. By 1720, the production of silver tobacco boxes had virtually ceased and the gold snuff box was rising in popularity.

Snuff: Snuff is finely ground tobacco mixed with scents. Spanish royalty introduced the habit to England. The taking of snuff replaced smoking by the early eighteenth century when the damaging effects of smoking became more and more apparent. By 1720, the production of silver tobacco boxes had virtually ceased and the gold snuff box was rising in popularity.

Snuffers tray and pair of snuffers

Silver

Origin: London

Date: 1682-1683

22.9 cm length of tray; 18.4 cm length of snuffers; 371 g weight of tray; 142 g weight of snuffers

Marks/Maker: The tray: London, sterling standard, 1682-3, maker's mark D in script possibly for Isaac Dighton. The snuffers with maker's mark only, WB, three pellets below possibly for William Browne

Provenance: Anon., sale, Sotheby's, London, 19 June 1986, lot 109; Jaime Ortiz-Pati ņo, sale, Sotheby's, New York, 21 May 1992, lot 151; the Whiteley Trust

Presented by Mrs Diane Bacon and Mrs Helen Smyth in memory of their grandfather, A. H. Whiteley; WA2002.230.1; WA2002.230.2

T. Schroder (2009), no. 171

Candle snuffers, devices for trimming the wicks of candles to prevent them from guttering, as well as for extinguishing them, were essential until the invention of the self-consuming wick in the early nineteenth century. Examples of this 'scissor' form were known from at least the early sixteenth century. The trays, known as 'slices' or 'pans' were in use by the mid-seventeenth century. This example is decorated with a flat-chased design then termed 'Japan work'.

Information derived from T. Schroder, British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean (2009)

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