INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

The decoration on this finely carved panel is referred to as chini kana, a term meaning ‘China Room’, and applied to small wall-niches in which bottles and vases were placed within a domestic interior. Our panel with its pierced design would have been placed in front of a recessed panel for the display of precious objects made of porcelain, jade, gold and silver, within the different carved openings. Mughal miniature paintings often illustrate the use of chini kana panels in Mughal architecture. The red sandstone is typical of the architectural decoration of the late Akbar period and the beginning of the reign of Jahangir and seen in Mughal buildings in Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. For a comparable late 16th/ early 17th century Mughal panel with a pierced design, see Fogg and Galloway, 2012, no.20. A chini kana panel, formerly in the collection of Sir Howard Hodgkin, with flasks and vessels carved in relief, sold recently in these Rooms, 30 June 2019, lot 31.