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Lot Essay
This box is almost a certainly a fine and expensive work-box, used by the English expatriates in India and inevitably brought back to England by members of the East India Company and other colonial officers. Henrietta Clive, whose husband served as Governor of Madras and as a couple collected Vizagapatam works, wrote in 1891 explaining the intricate process:
'We have seen the people inlaying the Ivory it appears very simple, they draw the pattern.. they intend with a pencil and then cut it out slightly with a small piece of Iron, they afterwards put hot Lac upon it, and when it is dry scrape it off and polish it, the Lac remains in the marks made with the piece of iron'. (M. Archer, Treasures of India, The Clive Collection, 1987, p. 84).
The densely scrolling foliage borders inlaid in ivory are typical of the manufactures of Vizagapatam, on the eastern Coromandel Coast of India, and the box can be firmly attributed that region. An octagonal work basket with similar typical scrolling foliate border, in a more delicate taste, and attributed to the craftsman Sedachellum was purchased by the East Indian Company in 1855 and now in the India Museum (illustrated A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 211, no. 56. A dressing box with near identical foliate inlay was sold Christie's, London, 21 May 2015, lot 71 (£11,250, including premium).
'We have seen the people inlaying the Ivory it appears very simple, they draw the pattern.. they intend with a pencil and then cut it out slightly with a small piece of Iron, they afterwards put hot Lac upon it, and when it is dry scrape it off and polish it, the Lac remains in the marks made with the piece of iron'. (M. Archer, Treasures of India, The Clive Collection, 1987, p. 84).
The densely scrolling foliage borders inlaid in ivory are typical of the manufactures of Vizagapatam, on the eastern Coromandel Coast of India, and the box can be firmly attributed that region. An octagonal work basket with similar typical scrolling foliate border, in a more delicate taste, and attributed to the craftsman Sedachellum was purchased by the East Indian Company in 1855 and now in the India Museum (illustrated A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 211, no. 56. A dressing box with near identical foliate inlay was sold Christie's, London, 21 May 2015, lot 71 (£11,250, including premium).