A snuff box used by William Morris of unknown, possibly Indian, origin. May Morris in her “Introduction to the Collected Works of William Morris” vol. XIII p.xix records: “He (Morris) took pleasure in all sorts of beautiful and precious boxes, and he prized certain trinkets, keepsakes from friends, such as an inlaid snuff box of choice work, though his everyday snuff-box was a somewhat plain silver one, and he carried his tobacco in a shabby little home-made bag of blue chintz – sometimes, until found and impounded by one of us, in a bank-bag tied with a bit of tape.”
The silver snuff box was given to Philip Webb by Jane Morris after Morris’s death. The blue tobacco pouch is in the Gallery’s collection (H28).
