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- Ch inese Opium B oxes
Opium Boxes with design of objects for the scholars desk (Hundred Antiques pattern)
� Flacons � opium ornes d'objets d'un pupitre de lettre (motif Hundred Antiques)
� Qing dynasty, 19th/early 20th century
� cloisonne � Gift of Hy Eiley, AGGV 2003.012.005, Gift of Margaret N.Cutt, AGGV 2000.024.003, Gift of Mrs. H. J. Mackinnon, AGGV 2000.025.001
all medicine and aphrodisiac. Sometimes served with either honey, prunes or orange peel, it was believed to relieve diarrhea, asthma, rheumatism, and pain in the heart and stomach. Early European traders introduced the smoking of opium, allowing the drug to reach the bloodstream quicker than eating it. By the late 18th century, opium smoking had spread across China as a recreational drug, and by the 19th century was taken by members of all levels of Chinese society to
Unlike snuff bottles, miniature opium boxes have not been the subject of widespread collecting. In fact, there are only a small number of collections in private hands and public museums. Nonetheless, these boxes are often quite exquisite, highly decorated and ultimately very collectible. Opium boxes were the personal small portable containers used to store the smokers supply of opium for use in daily life as well as for special occasions.
Opium, which came to be known euphemistically as "long-life mud," probably made its first appearance in China in the 8th century as a cure-
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