Tea and tobacco leaves - bookmarks on Etsy

Check out this item in my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/listing/573607169/set-of-three-assorted-tobacco-and-tea.

These original, hand-pulled and hand cut linocut bookmarks are available in my second Etsy shop, the Transylanian Trove.

he idea was originally a collaboration with a tea shop in Sibiu, so I thought the decoration was ideal for such a context. I then extended the project and used the individual lino plates in other compositions as well and for small-size art projects such as this one.
The price refers to a set of three assorted items, if you have any preference based on the item pictures, do let me know, otherwise I shall randomly choose.

For more items, feel free to follow me on Twitter as well: https://twitter.com/PompiliaSoimos

Tobacco and tea leaf linocut bookmarks

Apothecary uses of tobacco

Soon after the introduction of tobacco from America to Europe, during the 16th century, it became famous as the miraculous plant from the new continent, that healed all afflictions. The recreational use of the plant spread during the 17th century, conquering the entire world, but the medicinal use of tobacco continues until today. The toxic properties of tobacco were identified early on, but many other plants sued for healing were also toxic in certain concentrations.

Vintage botanical depiction of Nicotiana - the tobacco plant

In time, tobacco has been recommended against a wide array of symptoms, among which the most common were the ulcers and various lesions of the skin, wounds, and rheumatic pains. Tobacco infusions were recommended for their emetic properties and tobacco snuffing caused one to sneeze, a reaction deemed healthy for purifying the body. Entire treatises have been written on the medicinal properties of the plant and how to prepare it and there are, for example, several works entitled "Tabacologia".

Tabacologia : Hoc est Tabaci, seu Nicotianae Descriptio Medico-Chirurgico-Pharmaceutica

Lugduni Batavorum, Isaac Elzevier, 1626.

Nicotine was isolated from tobacco leaves during the 19th century and the medical world became increasingly skeptical towards the plant’s properties as panaceum as it contained a very toxic alkaloid. In carefully dosed concentrations, the independent use of nicotine continues even today in various medical experiments.

The History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca includes a 19th-century jar made of glazed pottery with the printed label inscribed EXTR NICOTIA FOL (Extractum Nicotianae Folium, tobacco leaf extract). The item was included in the collection in 1963 and was once used in the Unicorn pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca.

Apothecary jar for tobacco leaf extract

Listen to the exhibit presentation free online on the museum's izi.Travel profile - tobacco.

Read about it in Romanian on the museum's blog HERE.

For a detailed presentation on the introduction of smoking and early uses of tobacco in Transylvania and Central-Eastern Europe, see my book on academia.edu, free online and to download for those with an account on the website: Ana-Maria Gruia, The Gift of Vice. Pipes and the Introduction of Smoking in Early Modern Transylvania, 2013.

Tulips in Transylvania

The introduction of tulip to Europe is attributed to the Ottomans and dated to the mid-end of the sixteenth century, followed by the famous Tulipmania (also called the Tulipomania or the Tulip Fever) of the United Provinces (currently the Netherlands) towards the middle of the seventeenth century. But tulips also got to central and eastern Europe. In 1573 bulbs were planted in the imperial botanical Gardens of Vienna, for example. In Transylvania it remains yet unclear when and how the new oriental flowers were introduced - the only possible sources on the matter are for now depictions of the flowers on various types of decorative objects: carpets, embroideries, stove tiles. Ottoman carpets, with various uses in Transylvania, might have been themselves, and not the actual flowers, sources of inspiration for the latter, locally-produced artefacts. See below two such tulip-decorated stove tiles, probably dated to the second half of the seventeenth century, specific to the area of Cluj-Napoca. Tulips became frequent decorative motifs in folk art during the eighteenth and nineteenth century in the province, though the history of the plants remains unclear.

 These tiles must have been very fashionable at the time, even deemed exotic and Turkish. Similar lyre-shaped tulips on straight stems starting from large bulbs were associated to even more "revolutionary" images, such as tobacco-smoking riders.