Product Description

"The Art of Opium Antiques" explores an aspect of opium that has largely been ignored - the art and accoutrements associated with opium smoking that reached a pinnacle in nineteenth-century China and in Chinese communities abroad, from Saigon to Singapore to San Francisco. For a culture as ancient and rich as that of China, it should come as no surprise that once opium smoking was introduced, the custom would develop its own uniquely Chinese paraphernalia. Over the span of four hundred years, the smoking of opium in China evolved from simple tools and techniques to sophisticated accoutrements. Richly illustrated with photographs of the author's antique collection along with rarely seen historical photographs, "The Art of Opium Antiques" reveals the remarkable artistry of opium-smoking paraphernalia, including elaborate opium pipes, delicate opium lamps, ornate pipe-bowls, and myriad accoutrements once used for smoking the narcotic. These visually stunning and eminently collectible relics are wonderfully evocative of the romantic Orient of old.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #905638 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 125 pages

Customer Reviews

Opium as an antiquarian pursuit.


Once used by untold millions all over Asia, was opium invariably as dire as 20th century newspaper stereotypes suggested? For every hopelessly addicted wretch, after all, there were thousands with more moderate habits and countless occasional users. The epicentre of opium, though not always of its cultivation. was China. Opium was popular in high places. Tsu Hsi, the last Empress of China, retired with her pipe every afternoon; legions of Western diplomats in East Asia discreetly followed suit. As author Steven Martin evidences in his "Art of Opium Antiques" the history of opium smoking is long, richly faceted and fascinating.
Infectious and ubiquitous, the Chinese predilection for opium flourished with impunity for over two hundred years, surviving opprobrium and sporadic clampdowns. Opium smoking engendered a unique culture. Involving elaborate social ritual and artefacts calling for exquisite artistic design and craftsmanship, the paraphernalia of opium commanded an aesthetic regard on a par with the utensils for the tea ceremony in Japan. Now vanished, this culture has nonetheless left a rich legacy to be cherished by antiquarians and nostalgics.
The author of acclaimed guide books on South East Asia, Martin is both. Graced with a good many pictures of beautiful objects from his personal collection, the "Art of Opium Antiques" is a little volume almost as enlightening as the warm glow emanating from an opium lamp.
Buyers beware: long-stemmed Chinese water pipes, Vietnamese porcelain pipes et al are often passed off as "opium pipes" but, as Martin insists, the real thing is of one kind only. It's the one with the long stem and the mushroom-shaped bowl around three quarters of the way along it. It has been designed, he says, to vaporise the drug - not burn it. The user's true favourite was made of bamboo with a dark patina and a simple clay bowl.
However, a love of ostentation and luxury frequently called for pipes to be elaborately decorated. If one invited a guest to smoke a few pipes; it was fitting that he or she should be impressed. Cloisonné enamel, silver chasing, jade, gold and/or precious stones might adorn the stem; whether of jade or other semi-precious material or simply of clay or porcelain, the bowl might be beautifully carved, shaped, sculpted, incised and painted.
Bowls (also called dampers), like the pipes, have become highly collectable, sometimes fetching surprisingly high prices on the current market. Once inserted into the tiny recess in the bowl, the opium was made to sizzle softly over the lamp when one turned the pipe upside down over it. Opium amps are sought by collectors even more avidly. Rarely more than 15 cm tall, they were made of glass, paktong (Chinese cupro-nickel), brass, cloisonné, porcelain and more. The glass chimney was sometimes faceted or etched. Some lamps were specially made to pack away; when the addict travelled, he boxed his pipe and paraphernalia to take with him
No wonder opium memorabilia is so attractive to collectors! There were trinket boxes and little jars to hold the opium, long needles to prepare it, scissors and tweezers for trimming the wick, racks for the pipe-bowls, trays large and small, cleaning tools for pipe and bowl and boxes for the dross. All of which often displayed fine craftsmanship. There were also special day-beds and pillows made of porcelain or wood to ensure that the smoker's head remained level with the lamp.
There is a lot of history in here; perhaps unexpectedly much of it focuses on the United States. When the Chinese moved to America to build railroads in the 19th century, opium came too. San Francisco and New York boasted countless opium dens in their burgeoning Chinatowns. By the early 20th century, it was felt that it was time to clamp down - both in America as in China itself.
The order to seize and burn opium paraphernalia was out; whether smoking opium is bad or not, the loss of so many beautiful artefacts is something of a tragedy. Having taken note of the exquisite craftsmanship some of these pieces displayed, the mayor of San Francisco decided that some should be saved and put into a museum.
The situation in China was not quite so nuanced. Although opium and its paraphernalia survived until the early 20th century, when Mao Tse Tung took over it all became history. As a result, Martin warns the would-be collector, there is next to nothing left in China at all. Much of what there was was buried; a lot of stuff currently sold in China is either fake or has been latterly unearthed and is damaged and corroded accordingly.
Embellished with a great many photographs of opium dens, smokers and related events and materials, the Art of Opium Antiques is a valuable and informative account of a vice that, to the aesthete and collector at least, was not entirely free from virtue.