History of tobacco brought to Spain for its flowers, but "Now we use it to a greater extent for the sake of its virtues than for its beauty". John Hawkins was the first to bring tobacco seeds to England. William Harrison's "English Chronology" mentions tobacco smoking in the country as of 1573, before Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe from the Roanoke Colony, referring to it as "tobah" as early as 1578. In 1595 Anthony Chute published "Tabaco", which repeated earlier arguments about the benefits of the plant and emphasised the health-giving properties of pipe-smoking. The importation of tobacco
Tobacco and art in festival and burlesque paintings. Ivan Gaskell (Curator of Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts in the Harvard Art Museums) argues that "If we trace the imagery of topsy-turvydom in Dutch art we find tobacco to be a key element in scenes of comic disorder". Jan Steen, perhaps the most famous comic painter during the 17th century, often included pipe smoking, which took on sexual connotations in his paintings of brothels and taverns. For example, a man packing tobacco into a pipe along with pipes leaning against chamberpots symbolized sexual flirtations and intercourse. These were often used for a comic effect,