Quick Specs
- Type: Ashtray
- Size: 5 inches
- Shape: Round dish with a notched rim
- Design: Raised Cheshire Cat face with a wide grin
- Colors: Purple, pink, lime green, white
A Purple Wonderland Cat With a Wide White Grin
The cat’s face sits at the center of the dish in raised relief, so the ears, the brow, the cheeks, and the curve of the grin all stand up from the surface. The fur is pink with darker purple shading and is carved with short, slanting strokes that run outward from the nose. Two large eyes in lime green carry black slit pupils and a heavy black outline, and a small pink nose sits between them. Below it the mouth stretches almost from cheek to cheek, with a row of white teeth separated by fine dark lines and a curved lilac lip beneath. The dish around the face is deep purple with a fine hatched texture that suggests short fur, and the same purple rises to the rim. There the color changes to a ring of alternating blocks in dark purple and bright pink. Notches are cut into the edge at several points, which gives the rim a scalloped look from above. The black outlines keep the face crisp against the busy purple background, and at 5 inches the dish has room for the face to read as a portrait.
Lewis Carroll created the Cheshire Cat for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865, and artists have drawn, sculpted, and painted the cat in many styles since. This version is bold and saturated. The pink and purple blocks on the rim repeat the two colors of the face, so the dish reads as one design from the center outward, and the lime-green eyes carry the only bright green on the piece, which pulls your attention to them first. The white teeth come second. Because the face is raised, light from a window or a lamp throws small shadows under the brow and the cheeks, and those shadows shift through the day. A cat remembered for a grin that lingers after everything else has gone suits a dish where the grin takes up the whole lower half of the face. From across a room, the pink face against the purple dish stays easy to pick out, and set among books, teacups, and playing cards it makes a small Wonderland scene on a shelf.
Practical Ritual Applications
Put the dish where the face can be seen: on a desk, a side table, a bookshelf beside your copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, or a shelf of whimsical curiosities. It works as an ashtray for cigarettes and cigars, and between uses it sits as a display piece. A Wonderland corner needs only a few items, such as a teacup, a deck of playing cards, and a rabbit figure, with the cat grinning over them from its own dish. The bright colors stand out in a room with plain walls or dark furniture, where the pink and purple become the focus. As a gift, it fits a friend who loves Alice in Wonderland, a collector of cat figures, or anyone who likes a bold object on a work surface. For more dishes of this kind, browse my ashtray collection.
How to Set Up and Care for Your Cheshire Cat Ashtray
Choose a steady spot, stay with anything lit, and dust the raised face with a soft brush.
- Choose a Steady, Heat-Resistant Spot
Set the ashtray on a flat, level surface made of a heat-resistant material, such as a ceramic tile or a metal plate, and keep it clear of curtains, paper, and clothing. Fire services give this advice for incense holders, and it suits any dish that holds hot ash. Leave a few inches of space around the rim so a sleeve or an elbow passes clear of it.
- Stay With Anything Lit
The notches in the rim hold a cigarette or cigar while you're in the room. Fire services advise against leaving anything lit unattended, or resting on the edge of an ashtray, because it can tip and fall as it burns away. Stub it out fully in the dish before you leave the room or go to sleep.
- Dust the Raised Face
When the dish is cold and empty, dust the raised face with a fine, soft-bristled brush. Work into the carved fur and around the eyes with light strokes and no pressure. Conservators advise avoiding dusting sprays, furniture polish, and other commercial products on decorative objects unless a conservator recommends them, so a dry brush does the job.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock this ashtray for its face: a grinning Cheshire Cat in purple, pink, and lime green, raised from a 5 inch dish and finished with a notched, striped rim. It does a practical job on a desk or shelf and brings a bit of Wonderland to the room while it does it. I carry it for people who love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for anyone who likes color on a work surface, and for gift-givers who want something playful. For more pieces in the same spirit, see my novelty and gift ideas collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
John Tenniel illustrated the 1865 edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and his drawings of the Cheshire Cat are the best-known depictions of the character. Tenniel drew the designs, and engravers cut them into wood blocks for printing. Thomas Dalziel engraved the picture of the cat fading away with its smile the last thing to go. The cat on this ashtray is a newer interpretation in pink, purple, and green.
No. The saying was in use long before Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and a slang dictionary published in 1788 defines it. Carroll grew up in Cheshire, England, and something he heard there may have inspired his cat. The origin of the phrase itself has never been explained. Proposed answers include Cheshire cheeses molded into grinning cats and sign painters whose heraldic lions came out looking like cats.
Empty ashtrays carefully, and only when the contents are out and cold. The London Fire Brigade advises wetting smoking materials before they go in a bin, and it says never to use a wastepaper basket for them. Check that everything in the dish is out and cold before you carry it to the bin.
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