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a small wooden box with a bottle and a spoon on ita lot of tools that are sitting on a tablean old wooden box with four compartments on a white surfacea small wooden box with a metal handle on itan image of a close up of a piece of wooda bottle that has some kind of liquid inside of ita close up of a pair of scissors on a piece of wooda wooden table with a wooden handle on ita small pipe that is sitting on a wooden tablea plastic brush sitting on top of a wooden tablean image of a wooden table with a pen on top of ita wooden box with a bunch of tools inside of ita black vase sitting on a wooden tablea small bowl and a smaller bowl sitting on a tablea metal tray with a metal handle on it on a wooden table
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105 - INDOCHINA, Opium box made of exotic wood with four drawers a…
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Estimate €500 - €600
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Description
INDOCHINA, Opium box made of exotic wood with four drawers at the front, circa 1900–1930 DETAILS: - a pipe made of light-coloured horn, carved in the shape of an arm, with a bowl shaped like a hand (can be dismantled into 3 parts); - an opium needle (yen hok) for picking up and holding the piece of opium above the lamp; - a metal tray on which the various accessories were arranged; - a lamp with a blown-glass globe on an openwork metal frame of the paktong type (an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc) for heating the opium; - two curettes or scrapers with turned pale-coloured horn handles and iron tips for cleaning the brazier and collecting the dross (opium combustion residue); - a brass cup and a blue-and-white enamelled porcelain cup (cracked). NB: signs of wear, oxidation and minor losses COMMENT: In French Indochina, the Opium Board (a state monopoly established in the late 1890s, following the opium farm of the 1880s) made opium consumption a legal, regulated and widespread activity until the 1940s — a ban was not introduced until after the war. The vast majority of opium paraphernalia brought back to France by military personnel, civil servants and colonists therefore dates from this period between 1885 and 1940, with a peak in the interwar years, when colonial tourism and staff rotations were at their most intense.
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About the sale MEMENTO AMORI
Auction location
Auction time 07/11/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures modified on 07/07/2026 at 6:09 PM
Pictures credits:
The Sovereign
See original version (French)
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