Triangulating a Global Qing: China, Japan, and Europe in a Snuff Bottle

Abstract In the early eighteenth century, a palm-sized snuff bottle was produced for China’s Kangxi 康熙 emperor (r. 1661–1722). Made in the Qing dynasty court workshops in Beijing, this tiny object paired European-style enamels (if not also imported pigments) painted on copper with two insets of Japanese black and gold maki-e lacquer. Combining Japanese and European materials in Chinese court arts is highly unusual, especially in so small an object, making the snuff bottle an extremely rare and rather experimental example. Yet this self-consciously globalizing object, whose imperial approval is present in the Kangxi reign mark ( Kangxi nianzhi 康熙年製 ) on its base, reveals more than creative innovation and technical ingenuity. By combining materials, techniques, foreign origins, object function, and representational styles, it demonstrates a wide scope of foreign engagement on the part of the emperor who laid the foundation for the entire High Qing period (1662–1799).