Dutch silver tobacco jar

Dutch silver tobacco jar

Wijnand Warneke, Amsterdam, 1763

631 grams; 15 cm high, 14 cm long

Fully marked at the reverse and marked the maker’s mark and provincial lion on the interior of the cover, also with a control mark for 1795.

Nowadays, Dutch silver tobacco jars can be found in museums and private collections, but in the past they were actually used by pipe-smoking magistrates and merchants, who loved to surround themselves with precious objects. From 1720 -1790 the finest silver tobacco jars were made throughout the Netherlands, in various styles and sizes. Thereafter, they often came with a matching brazier, containing coals for lighting the clay pipes. In a jar the tobacco would be well preserved and kept dry.

This Regence tobacco jar from 1763, the year in which Wijnand Warneke enrolled in the Amsterdam silversmiths’ guild, is an early, or rather the earliest object that was made by this productive silversmith. Besides tobacco jars, he also is known to have made a table fountain in 1766, candlesticks, coffee pots, tea services, bread baskets and sugar bowls.

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