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Lot Essay
This small perfume or cosmetic flask is highly unusual in being lined with silver. The technique employed appears to be the pouring in of molten silver after the two halves of the rock crystal vessel were luted together, rather than lining the piece with sheet silver prior to the joining of the two halves. This suggests that the object would have been used for a liquid such as perfume, rather than a more dense substance such as kohl.
The use of cabochon gemstones linked together by a mesh of gold wire has been employed on a mango-shaped flask, 6cm. high in the David Collection. This piece is not lined with silver, being carved from a single piece of rock crystal, but is probably from the same workshop. Like the present lot it also would have had a stopper, possibly of precious metal, now lost. (Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal, Copenhagen, 1996, cat. 347, p364). A similar piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is also made in two pieces. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 1993, vol. LI, no2, p.23).
The use of cabochon gemstones linked together by a mesh of gold wire has been employed on a mango-shaped flask, 6cm. high in the David Collection. This piece is not lined with silver, being carved from a single piece of rock crystal, but is probably from the same workshop. Like the present lot it also would have had a stopper, possibly of precious metal, now lost. (Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal, Copenhagen, 1996, cat. 347, p364). A similar piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is also made in two pieces. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 1993, vol. LI, no2, p.23).