This tabouret with its combination of originally gleaming brass and shining mother-of-pearl is an extremely opulent piece of furniture. Its form is very similar to that of one sold in these rooms 20 October 1992 as lot 123. Compared to later examples, both are of considerably sturdier proportions with relatively short legs. The polygonal form, while encountered throughout the Arab and Turkish world, is not one found for low tables from India. This tabouret, while Ottoman in shape, has a surface decoration that at first seems more typical of the 17th century from either Gujerat or even Germany. It is, however, a decorative technique that is also occasionally used on Ottoman furniture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A chest in the Freer gallery contains panels of similar decoration; hexagons of mother-of-pearl each fixed with a large central brass nail (Art Treasures, no.257). A second item in the same exhibition, a Qur'an chest, also demonstrates arches of a very similar form to those that serve to link the upper section of each leg here (op. cit. no.258). It is probable that the original concept was imported to Turkey from Gujerat and, while occasionally used, never found as much favour there as the more usual combination with tortoiseshell.

Art Treasures of Turkey, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C. 1966