The engraved silver cap on this diminutive snuff horn notes that it was presented to “Robert Burns, Exciseman, Globe Tavern, Dumfries, Jan 17th, 1796.” Burns served as an exciseman from 1789 until his death in July, 1796, levying duties on the products of “victuallers, rectifiers, chandlers, tanners, tawsers, maltsters, etc.” After Burns’s death, personal effects like this one were avidly collected by his nineteenth-century admirers.

Snuff horn. Horn and silver. Scotland, 1796. 1954.2048