Portraits in a Nutshell showcases intricately carved snuff boxes and bottles sculpted from coquilla nuts between the seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Both utilitarian and decorative, these containers represent a stunning diversity of artistic approaches and subject matter. Just as the use of snuff crossed lines of geographic origin and racial and social hierarchy, so too, did the objects that contained it. As a result, coquilla nut snuff boxes and bottles present a rich material archive of the Atlantic world and the central role of Indigenous and Black histories within it.

Coquilla nuts, the fruit of the Brazilian palm, are just three or four inches long. This book demonstrates how, soon after Europeans and Africans first found a use for the nut in Brazil as an object that could both hold snuff and be decorative, it spread throughout the Atlantic world. Today, coquille nut snuff boxes and bottles are an understudied art form that, despite the objects' small size, encapsulates an early modern history of transoceanic movement and creativity. The carvings depict animals and fantastical creatures drawn from throughout the Atlantic world, scenes of religious and courtly life, portraits of political and military leaders, abolitionists and activists, and people at the margins of colonial society.

Over 250 detailed photographs of snuff bottles and boxes not only illustrate the exceptional skill of their creators but also illustrate the story of millions of Africans transported to Brazil during centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. The text demonstrates the interconnectedness of the Atlantic world, the movements of peoples and ideas, and the commercial exchange of goods and cultural and material objects in Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.