heat, light, and smoke

shelf 4

Tobacco has been an important commodity for thousands of years, its uses ranging from medicinal and mood-altering to recreational and ceremonial. Containers for storing tobacco include silver boxes, ceramic cigar humidors, and Native American leather pouches adorned with European trade beads and jingle cones cut from tin snuff cans.

 

Click an object to learn more

A leather beaded pouch with white, black, red, and green beaded designs. There is a handle as well as fringes with metal and leather decorations.

Apache

Tobacco Pouch, ca. 1900

Leather, beads, and metal

Gift of Mrs. Thomas Hunt 43.421

Rounded metal container with raised floral designs. A small circular metal ring attached to the top.

Malay or Sumatran Peninsula  

Tobacco Box, 1800s–1900s

Silver

Gift of Miss Elizabeth T. Casey 1988.102.2 

Stylized animal designs arranged in a rectangular format, all in black.

Haida

Panel Pipe, ca. 1820–1830

Argillite

Collection of Reverend Robert Casey EL256.45

Container with a long, rectangular bottom and rounded top. White body with designs in black and brown. Yellow stripe down the center and yellow handle on top.

Gien Faience Factory, French, 1821–present

Humidor, ca. 1865–1870

Earthenware with tin glaze, polychrome metal oxides, and glaze

Gift of the Estate of Shirley A. Goldberg 1992.122.1

Vessel with an elongated, flared neck and unglazed foot. Decorated with a figure with wings holding a trumpet in one hand and a vessel in the other.

Pan Painter, Greek, active 480–460 BCE

Oil Flask (Lekythos), ca. 480 BCE

Red-figure terra cotta

Museum Appropriation and Special Gift Fund 25.110

A sculptural dark gray ceramic lamp with multiple holes to the interior, in the shape of a humanoid face.

Roman

Lamp, 100 BCE–100 CE

Ceramic with black slip

Museum Works of Art Fund 60.054