Snuffbottle China

I was given this today as a gift! How sweet....
Our new non-executive thought I would like it.

It is a snuffbottle with hand drawn artwork inside the bottle. This craftwork originated in Qing Dynasty of China 260 years ago when the DaoGuang Emperor was in power. At first it was just a play item for the aristocrat, and then it became a great technique of Chinese traditional craft. All bottles are hand painted with a multitude of pictures. The artist uses a fine tipped paintbrush to paint the miniature details inside the bottle using traditional painting style, which must be very hard to do considering the size of the bottle mouth!

According to the new non-executive the bottle is crystal and then hand carved before being painted. It's pretty and a lovely gesture, so I thought I would share with you!

Anyway, back to the day job! - Yawn!!