Scottish silver & horn snuff mull

Classic William IV highly polished, silver-mounted ram's horn snuff mull with a multi-faceted quartz stone inset into the lid. The secure hinged silver lid is nicely hand chased with traditional decorative thistles and ensures the snuff inside is not spoiled by being exposed to the air.

The ritual of taking snuff - the ground form of tobacco - became popular in Britain in the 1600s, and particularly prevalent in Scotland. As a variation of a snuff box, the word mull comes from a Scottish dialect word for mill and mulls were most frequently crafted from a ram's horn and sometimes sea shells. Like this fine example, snuff mulls were often decorated with rock crystal, marble and other semi-precious materials indigenous to Scotland, set into a silver lid.