Hong Kong. The British Crown Colony Days.
I once had a piano teacher I hated. Loathed. A Miss Braga.
Dragooned by my parents into taking lessons from her, I seethed through every scale, every arpeggio for the eight years we lived in the then-British Crown Colony. Time and therapy never dulled that loathing. My only consolation was the eventual realization that she likely loathed every moment as much as I did, having to waste her time on a bratty kid so stubbornly determined not to excel.
As it turns out, however, the Loathed One led to the opening of a new world. But it took decades for that silver lining to manifest itself.
San Francisco
It took a move to the Bay Area to emancipate me from those lessons. Imagine my dismay, then, when not long after we got there, I was informed that we’d be going to dinner at the home of Miss Braga’s brother, Paul – who, as it happened, had also moved to San Francisco. (Would I never be rid of that woman?) But Paul, whom I’d met at a couple of those excruciating piano recitals, had always been the “nice” even vaguely cool Braga. So I went.
I’m not sure how Paul got it into his head to show me his collection of snuff bottles. Perhaps he sensed I might be interested. Most likely he wanted me to shut up and thought some form of entertainment was in order. But show me he did.
Yuck, I said, with delightful adolescent charm, when I was told what snuff was and how it was consumed. And why these fiddly little bottles made out of glass and jade and stone with their intricate carvings and enameled illustrations and topped with contrasting stoppers? Paul patiently, kindly, explained.
The irony
I barely remember the collection itself.
But the vibe – that I remember. The stories of Old Hong Kong, colonial days, Chinese emperors, European vices. And I also remember the wonder, the marvel, the love in his voice for these diminutive devices.
I could feel the history and mystery of a place I’d lived in (and was realizing I missed), a glimpse into another time, a way of living decidedly in the past, but also strangely timeless. And it was, perhaps, the first time that I’d touched an object to which I could actually ascribe meaning.
It also gave me an inkling that there was a universe of people out there who collected things that were old. It was an utterly foreign concept. Until then, I thought all that was in the province of museums. My parents – though lovers of beautiful things – were not collectors. To me, Paul was as rare and exotic as the snuff bottles he collected.
It might have been my first toe dip into the deep waters of material culture.
The back story
Paul Braga was a member of one of the oldest, most storied Portuguese families in Hong Kong. The Portuguese had been in the area for centuries, pre-dating the British, since the Portuguese colonization of neighboring Macau in the 16th century. When the British took over Hong Kong courtesy of the Opium Wars circa the 1850s, Portuguese Macanese came into Hong Kong, as merchants, shippers, traders, bankers. The Bragas were one of those families.
A 2012 Bonhams HK catalogue of Paul Braga’s collection picks up the story.
The Braga family had their roots in Macau, tracing back to 1708, when an ancestor was posted from Lisbon as Chief Justice. The twentieth century was a tumultuous period for them, with fortunes lost and regained. After the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, he escaped with his young family on an epic trek through southern China, eventually hitching a ride from Kunming to India with the ‘Flying Tigers’, the American Volunteer Group who established an air route for supplies to assist the Chinese resistance after the fall of the Burma Road.
Post-war, Paul returned to Hong Kong, prospered, and began collecting snuff bottles, honoring craftsmanship and a way of living long past, a time before modernity. His collecting was about love, not money, or acclaim. He went on to write, publish and speak, eventually moving to San Francisco where he lived the rest of his life. (More on that life here. I’m saying it now: it’s great fodder for a Netflix series.)
Bonhams’s catalogue adds this:
The Paul Braga Collection provides a window into old Hong Kong, a bygone age when snuff bottles were displayed in baskets in antique shops and could be bought for several dollars each. Paul Braga was a true connoisseur in an era when little of substance was published on the subject….Using his own eye and experience, he built up his collection and popularized the subject.
London. Cork Street. Decades later.
This was back when Cork Street was still London’s legendary art and antiques district of yore, before the luxury boutiques and the PE firms flooded in. I must have been transiting through on my way somewhere, as I wasn’t much interested in antiques then, but something compelled me to look into a window as I passed.
Snuff bottles. Instinct drew me in. An hour later, I was still there, remembering the Braga visit (first time I’d thought about it in years). Now immersed in the worlds of craft and design, I found myself fascinated with the art and craft of these pieces. And I almost found myself buying a pair of these treasures. But didn’t. I think I wasn’t ready.
In the intervening years, I’ve thought about that Braga visit a lot – and in particular now as I explore the world of collectors and connoisseurs. As a gatherer, not a collector per se – as someone who’s more about the story behind the symphony, rather than the movements, the melody, the notes – I’m fascinated with those who can muster decades of interest in a single, narrow topic. But even more than that, the experience with the snuff bottles raised the bar high for me as I recall the wonder and love in Paul Braga’s voice.
Nothing’s yet beckoned me into that collecting fold.
The crucial word is “yet”.
And yes I realize that I should thank Miss Braga for all this. But I won’t. Not just yet.
PS. Should you wish to plunge down the snuff bottle rabbit hole, start here, then go here.
So good. ❤️ Love a childhood story that comes full circle years later. (Take that Miss Braga...)
Love hearing your history and what brought you towards craft. Those creative awakenings become obvious when you look backwards. Sometimes though, you know it moment it happens. I live for those.