A brass-mounted turned treen tobacco bowl and cover, possibly Dutch East Indies, 18th century, for communal use, with baluster handle and moulded rim and foot, 30cm high, 25cm diameter Note: E. H. Pinto, Treen & Other Wooden Bygones (1970), figure 355, for a similar bowl, described as 'a Dutch community table tobacco bowl', and in the accompanying text on p.342, as a 'very rare, Dutch, 18th century tobacco jar-bowl...hollowed out of a walnut root, handsomely mounted in brass.' Pinto notes that it 'may have been used for passing tobacco round the table at a guild or similar meeting...[or] it may have been used for conditioning tobacco leaves in various juices during the process of snuff making'. The illustrated bowl, like the bowl in this lot, has a 1 inch rebate around the rim, which allowed for its close-fitting lid to move up and down as it acted as a press. Please refer to department for condition report