The decorative meerschaum pipes manufactured in 1873 for the World Exhibition in Vienna constitute the core of the collection. They were among the first objects bought by Austria Tabak thus forming the foundation of its tobacco historical collection.
An example is the below pipe shaped like a Gothic tower; the figures represent the fine arts, trade, science and engineering.
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Many years of careful collecting resulted in a wealth of cultural-historical objects covering more than 500 years of tobacco history.
The collection’s cultural-historical scope spans an arc from the discovery of tobacco by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and its introduction in Europe – where the plant was initially only used for ornamental purposes in botanical gardens – all the way to the 20th century and the triumph of the cigar and the cigarette.
Until the end of the 18th century tobacco was also considered a panacea and played a significant role in medicine. It was applied externally in the form of an ointment or oil but also administered orally as syrup or simply snuffed.
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"The Quacksalver" includes all the accessories needed for smoking clay pipes: a coal pan filled with charcoal, a box of tobacco and a clay pipe.
In early 17th century Holland, the city of Gouda evolved as one of the main clay pipe manufacturing centres.
Tobacco snuffing was taken up in the 18th century and cultivated primarily by the nobles to distinguish themselves from the common people and their clay pipes. To produce snuff, tobacco was blended with herbs such as rosemary, lavender or cloves to lend it its aroma before it was cauterised and then rolled into the so-called "Carrotte". Prior to consumption these solid rolls of tobacco or "Carrottes" had to be ground with a tobacco rasp.
The most important utensil of the tobacco snuffer was the snuffbox which wasn’t merely a depository for the ground tobacco but equally important as a fashion accessory. Since it had to match both the dress of the owner as well as the occasion, it was common among the wealthy to possess fair numbers of these boxes. Frederick the Great, for instance, left a collection of 1,500 snuffboxes.
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In the 19th century the distinguished circles went back to smoking tobacco. It became fashionable to smoke the modern cigarros imported from the Spanish colonies in the Americas and pipe smoking was also back in trend.
By then the consumption of tobacco had become a pleasure exclusively reserved to men. Smoking was enjoyed in the smoking room or in the coffee house.
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In pipe manufacturing the hitherto commonly used clay was gradually replaced by other materials. One of the most exquisite materials was the already mentioned meerschaum, a decomposition product of the serpentine.
Besides pipes made from porcelain and particularly popular in the Biedermeier, it was also common to smoke water pipes (Nargileh), oriental clay pipes of up to two metres in length (Tschibuk) and wooden pipes. The latter were very popular among craftsmen and peasants because they were cheap and easily self-made.
Finally during the Crimean War, cigarettes as we know them today were first introduced in Central Europe. In Vienna they were initially considered the trade mark of the lower classes but by the turn of the century they had become the most widely consumed tobacco product.
