A ruyi-shaped Shakudo-style erotic tobacco or snuff box, relief-decorated with silvered applied figures
Possibly Jakarta (Batavia), first half 18th century
H. 2.2 x L. 12.1 x W. 8 cm
This box is very much in the Dutch taste, for the illustration is after a print with a legend reading “L’oiseau sans cage. Prenez, belle, mon oiseau. C’est le plus doux présent que je puisse vous faire. Pour les autres oiseaux, la cage d’ordinaire est une espèce de tombeau. Mais le mien semble prendre une nouvelle vie, Lorsqu’il sera dans la cage de mon aimable Silvie.” The erotic message is as clear as can be.
In Dutch culture the verb vogelen (catching a bird) is another word for having sex and a bird escaping from his cage indicates loss of chastity. The lady with the bare breasts, while making the sign of sealed lips to the lady behind her, who is pointing towards heaven, seems to be caressing the bird held in the sleeping man’s groin. 17th century Dutch pictures and poetry are full of birds, and also dogs, with suggestive erotic meanings and the illustration on the present box certainly fits perfectly in this tradition.
The shakudo-style of the box and the Dutch design decoration suggests that either Nagasaki or Batavia might be the place where this box was made for a Dutch client, either by Chinese or by Japanese craftsmen. When Japan closed itself off from the rest of the world in about 1640, the Japanese were not only prohibited from leaving the country but also Japanese abroad were forbidden to return. Some Japanese craftsmen remained outside Japan, in China, Tonkin and Batavia where they possibly continued to perform their 'shakudo’ Japanese crafts, called 'sawasa’ in Batavia. However, the ubiquitous Chinese certainly also mastered this technique.
A similar box was auctioned at Bonhams Hong Kong, 24 November 2013, lot 6, in the sale of the 'Speelman Collection of Imperial Tribute Snuff Boxes’. This box also has several erotic references; a European lady wearing loose clothing, with an exotic bird perched on her left hand, a man peeping and in the background a farmer spreading seedlings. The inside of the lid bearing a scene of two figures indulged in passionate kissing, flanked by a pair of doves. Surely, a Dutchman having a little tobacco or snuff with his friends, chuckled at this very erotic, though prudish, imagery.
H. 2.2 x L. 12.1 x W. 8 cm
This box is very much in the Dutch taste, for the illustration is after a print with a legend reading “L’oiseau sans cage. Prenez, belle, mon oiseau. C’est le plus doux présent que je puisse vous faire. Pour les autres oiseaux, la cage d’ordinaire est une espèce de tombeau. Mais le mien semble prendre une nouvelle vie, Lorsqu’il sera dans la cage de mon aimable Silvie.” The erotic message is as clear as can be.
In Dutch culture the verb vogelen (catching a bird) is another word for having sex and a bird escaping from his cage indicates loss of chastity. The lady with the bare breasts, while making the sign of sealed lips to the lady behind her, who is pointing towards heaven, seems to be caressing the bird held in the sleeping man’s groin. 17th century Dutch pictures and poetry are full of birds, and also dogs, with suggestive erotic meanings and the illustration on the present box certainly fits perfectly in this tradition.
The shakudo-style of the box and the Dutch design decoration suggests that either Nagasaki or Batavia might be the place where this box was made for a Dutch client, either by Chinese or by Japanese craftsmen. When Japan closed itself off from the rest of the world in about 1640, the Japanese were not only prohibited from leaving the country but also Japanese abroad were forbidden to return. Some Japanese craftsmen remained outside Japan, in China, Tonkin and Batavia where they possibly continued to perform their 'shakudo’ Japanese crafts, called 'sawasa’ in Batavia. However, the ubiquitous Chinese certainly also mastered this technique.
A similar box was auctioned at Bonhams Hong Kong, 24 November 2013, lot 6, in the sale of the 'Speelman Collection of Imperial Tribute Snuff Boxes’. This box also has several erotic references; a European lady wearing loose clothing, with an exotic bird perched on her left hand, a man peeping and in the background a farmer spreading seedlings. The inside of the lid bearing a scene of two figures indulged in passionate kissing, flanked by a pair of doves. Surely, a Dutchman having a little tobacco or snuff with his friends, chuckled at this very erotic, though prudish, imagery.
Part of the Japan collection.
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