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Published by: Brandeis University Press
Release Date: June 19, 2025
Contributors: Edited by Donna S. Sanzone, Preface by Matthew Francis Rarey, Introduction by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw
ISBN13: 978-1684582587

 
OVERVIEW

A gorgeously illustrated look at snuff boxes and bottles carved from the Brazilian coquilla nut reveals a larger history of commerce, cultural exchange, and power in the Atlantic world.

Portraits in a Nutshell showcases intricately carved snuff boxes and bottles sculpted from coquilla nuts between the seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Both utilitarian and decorative, these containers represent a stunning diversity of artistic approaches and subject matter. Just as the use of snuff crossed lines of geographic origin and racial and social hierarchy, so too, did the objects that contained it. As a result, coquilla nut snuff boxes and bottles present a rich material archive of the Atlantic world and the central role of Indigenous and Black histories within it.

Coquilla nuts, the fruit of the Brazilian palm, are just three or four inches long. This book demonstrates how, soon after Europeans and Africans first found use for the nut in Brazil as an object which could both hold snuff and be decorative, it fast spread throughout the Atlantic world. Today, coquilla nut snuff boxes and bottles are an understudied art form that, despite the objects’ small size, encapsulates an early modern history of transoceanic movement and creativity. The carvings depict animals and fantastical creatures drawn from throughout the Atlantic world, scenes of religious and courtly life, portraits of political and military leaders, abolitionists and activists, and people at the margins of colonial society.

Over 250 detailed photographs of snuff bottles and boxes not only illustrate the exceptional skill of their creators but also illustrate the story of millions of Africans transported to Brazil during centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. The text demonstrates the interconnectedness of the Atlantic world, the movements of peoples and ideas, and the commercial exchange of goods and cultural and material objects in Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.

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PRAISE

“Richly illustrated, this beautiful volume brings to light for the first time a fascinating and intriguing collection of dozens of snuff boxes and bottles, showing that even small vessels conceived for tobacco storage and consumption embodied the wealth of African, Native American, and European cultures during the era of the Atlantic slave trade.”
—Ana Lucia Araujo, author of Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery

“Portraits in a Nutshell is a pioneering and revelatory work that uncovers the meaning and ramifications of seemingly humble artifacts, long misunderstood as vestiges of European trade and tobacco use. David Badger chanced upon one, and then sought others. As his collection grew, he “listened” to these objects and began to suspect they had stories to tell that were not solely European. His quest has revealed a uniquely Black Atlantic artform expressive of the artistry and perspective of enslaved artisans, those who had no voice in their fate. These coquilla nut-carved vessels speak resoundingly of the power of material culture to testify for those who, in their own time, could not. Bravo to David Badger for listening to them whisper, and giving them the chance to roar.”
—Leslie Greene Bowman, President Emerita, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

“The material is fascinating, the images are wonderful, and the author has done considerable research on Africans in Brazil and relations between Brazil and Africa.”
—Stuart Schwartz, George Burton Adams Professor of History; Chair, Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies, Yale University

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CONTRIBUTORS

David Badger, Collector, Foreword
David Badger is a prominent collector of 18th and 19th century coquilla nut snuff boxes and bottles, having assemble over the past fifty years the largest and most extensive collection of its kind in the world. He also collects snuff boxes in the shape of shoes of the same period, Hester Bateman silver, and American decorative arts. He is a retired executive of Mars, Incorporated, a world leader in food manufacturing and marketing. He has lived in London, England, Vienna, Austria and Hong Kong and currently resides in Tokyo, Japan and McLean, Virginia, USA. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the Wharton Graduate Division of the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of the Cosmos Club and the Georgetown Club in Washington, DC., and the Tokyo Club and the Tokyo American Club in Tokyo.

Donna S. Sanzone, Editor
Donna S. Sanzone is an editor, researcher, writer, and developer of hundreds of academic and reference books and databases over a 30-year career in publishing. In addition to executive level positions at G.K. Hall, Macmillan, and Grolier Academic Reference, she was Executive Editor for the Harper Collins/Smithsonian Institution joint reference program, working with Smithsonian museums to produce exhibition catalogs and other illustrated works. She has developed and contributed to many award-winning academic publications, multi-volume subject encyclopedias, and databases in the arts and social sciences, including Global History and Culture (a database from M.E. Sharpe) and Encyclopedia of African American Art (now part of Oxford Art Online).

Matthew Francis Rarey, Preface
Matthew Francis Rarey is Associate Professor of African and Black Atlantic Art History at Oberlin College. He holds a Ph.D. in Art History and Latin American Studies, and a Certificate in African Studies, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His areas of expertise include African art in the Atlantic world; enslavement and its visual representations; and arts of Afro-Atlantic religions. He is the author of several articles and academic reviews on the Black Atlantic art history, the visual culture of Brazilian slavery, and Black art in Brazil. His most recent book is Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press, 2023).

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Introduction
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw is Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Professor of History of Art and Graduate Chair, Department of Art History, at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is The Art of Remembering: Essays on African American Art and History (Duke University Press, 2024). She is also author of Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker, also published by Duke University Press, and Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century.