Full Description
A gorgeously illustrated look at snuff boxes and bottles carved from the Brazilian coquilla nut reveals a larger history of commerce, cultural exchange, and power in the Atlantic world.
Portraits in a Nutshell showcases intricately carved snuff boxes and bottles sculpted from the Brazilian coquilla nut between the seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Both utilitarian and decorative, these bottles and boxes were produced and used by diverse people of wide-ranging geographic origin, racial background, and social standing. As a result, coquilla nut snuff boxes present a rich material archive of the Atlantic world and the central role of Indigenous and Black histories within it.
Despite being just three or four inches long, these coquilla nut snuff boxes encapsulate an early modern history of transoceanic movement and creativity. The carvings depict animals and fantastical creatures, scenes of religious and courtly life, portraits of political and military leaders, abolitionists and activists, and people at the margins of colonial society. These images are available to the public and to scholars for the first time in this book and will be of interest to antique collectors, art historians, social historians, and anyone interested in the unusual and the curious.
Over 250 detailed photographs of snuff bottles and boxes from the unique and wide-ranging collection of David Badger not only illustrate the exceptional skill of their creators but also tell the story of millions of Africans transported to Brazil during centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. The text demonstrates the interconnectedness of the Atlantic world, the movements of peoples and ideas, and the commercial exchange of goods and cultural and material objects in Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. In this beautiful book, these objects reveal a story never before told.
With a preface by Matthew Francis Rarey, associate professor of African and Black Atlantic art history at Oberlin College, and an introduction by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Arthur Ross Gallery.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Coquilla Nut Snuff Bottle and Box: An Overview
Chapter 2 The Coquilla Nut and the Tagua Palm
Chapter 3 The Construction and Evolution of the Coquilla Nut Snuff Bottle and Box
Chapter 4 Slavery, Cultural Encounter, and Resistance in Colonial Brazil
Chapter 5 Indigenous Dimensions of Brazilian Coquilla Nut Snuff Bottles
Chapter 6 African and Afro-Brazilian Dimensions of Coquilla Nut Snuff Boxes
Chapter 7 Global Distribution and Adaptation of the Coquilla Nut
Chapter 8 Portraits and Caricatures
Chapter 9 Zoomorphic, Anthropomorphic, and Therianthropic Imagery
Chapter 10 Religion and Religious Portraits
Chapter 11 Liberty and Anti-Slavery Representations
Chapter 12 Military and War Imagery
Gallery of Additional Images
Editor's Note
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Illustration Credits
Endnotes
Further Reading
Index
