Snuff bottles are not native to China but were reportedly introduced from the West by Fr.Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit father who worked in Beijing in the early 17th century. Yet the art of interior painting in snuff bottles was born and developed in China and unique to the country.
Snuff bottles are small in size, no more than 6-7 cm high and 4-5 cm wide, yet the accomplished artist can produce, on the limited space of the internal surfaces, any subject on the whole gamut of traditional Chinese painting- human portraits, landscapes, flowers and birds- and calligraphy.