The drug of choice for most of the world in the 19th century was Opium. The Western powers cultivated it, created demand for it in the East and then went to war to suppress it leaving a trail of carnage and opium addicts in their wake.
Maggs Bros. Ltd. of London is currently offering what it believes is “the finest collection on the subject” ever assembled. The Santo Domingo Opium Collection is comprised of over 3,000 items, gathered over decades of collecting. The collection contains extensive historical documentation as well as “a huge collection of objects, including material of the highest quality and the most demotic.”
Fuchsia Voremberg and Ben Maggs have curated an exhibition around the collection and it is on view at Maggs through August.
Dazed Digital has more photos of the collection