In 1899, Earl’s Court offered interested Londoners the chance to pay 6d to see a Hong Kong ‘opium smoking parlour’, filled with ‘living Chinaman’ and ‘true to every detail’. This reflected an ongoing fascination for the Chinese habit of smoking opium – a habit that had been partly encouraged by the British East India Company and then condemned by British missionaries – and merrily ignored the fact the British themselves had been consuming opium for decades.
The Chinese tradition of smoking looked and felt very different though, and that’s partly because it was so deeply ingrained into society, a ritual to be enjoyed alongside tea and nicotine with a rich material culture, lavish paraphernalia and its own customs, traditions and symbolic meaning. This is explored in an extraordinary exhibition of Chinese opium pipes at Maggs Bros bookshop in Berkeley Square, which I have written about for the Independent on Sunday.
It features a unique collection of 19th-century Chinese pipes and related material that demonstrate the full complexity of the Chinese relationship with opium, as can be seen in some of the following images – and these barely scratch the surface of the incredible collection that can be seen at Berkeley Square from June 5 to the end of July.
Field of opium poppies
Jar for storing opium
Chinese opium smoker
Postcard of opium smoker from Vietnam
Bowl for smoking opium
Opium pipe
Smoker with pipe and tools
Opium pipe
Opium pipe
Bowl for opium pipe
Pipes being burnt by anti-opium reformers
Bowl for opium pipe
Lamp used for preparing and smoking opium
Tray for carrying opium tools
Pink pills for pale people – opium cure
Box for storing opium with erotic carving – opium was seen as an aphrodisiac and was originally smoked in brothels
Bowl for smoking opium
Opium pipe
Preparing a pipe
Tools for preparing opium
Opium pipe
Opium smoker with cat – pets often became addicted to the opium fumes
The Great Wen 