Chinese snuff bottles are made of a wide variety of materials but the most charming and truly fascinating snuff bottles are those with paintings painted on the interior walls.

Interior painting is the art in which elaborate pictures and beautiful designs are painted onto the inner walls of a bottle with a slender bamboo stick, with a tip shaped like a fine-pointed hook.  However, not all bottles can be used for this type of art.  The bottles are prepared by filling them with fine quartz crystals and then shaking them as to make the inner wall of the bottle rough enough for easier application of the paint.  This makes the art of painting much more difficult as the glass is now no longer clear.  The images are essentially painted without the artist being able to see where the brush is.

This technique started in the Qing Dynasty.  It is a unique skill of China, with a history of more than 200 years.

This special limited edition snuff bottle is painted by Mr Peng Shu Liang 彭 书 良 (Traditional Palace Interior Painter) and features Grandmaster William Cheung performing a wooden dummy technique on one side of the bottle, and a dragon on the other side, with the Cheung logo.