Peking Glass Cat and Butterfly Snuff Bottle

Snuff bottles were often used during the Qing dynasty. Owned by doctors, they contained a mixture of tobacco and other leaves as an herbal medicine. Peking glass originated in the eighteenth century in Beijing. It consists of adding layers of glass around a single core. It is then slowly carved away into a relief. This snuff bottle depicts a cat, symbolic of misfortune, and a butterfly, a symbol for love seeking. Meaning there is ill fortune in someone's efforts to seek out love.