THE DOORS AND DRAWERS INDIAN, VIZAGAPATAM, MID-18TH CENTURY, RECONSTRUCTED IN ENGLAND IN THE LATE 18TH 19TH CENTURY

Vizagapatam, a port to the north of the Eastern Coromandel coast of India, was renowned from the late seventeenth century for its craftsmens' skilled inlaying and veneering of ivory over wooden carcasses. The intricate designs produced there were aligned to Western forms and often engraved with Western scenes. Furniture and objects manufactured in Vizagapatam were considered luxury goods and retailed in Madras and Calcutta. Their popularity spread further by examples brought back to England by leading officials of the East India Company such as Clive of India and Warren Hastings. This clothes-press, whilst incorporating Indian mid-18th century engraved-ivory panels, was probably reconstructed in England in the late 18th century, using oak and pine for its carcase. The borders of densely scrolling foliage relate to several pieces dated to the mid-18th century and illustrated in A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, pp. 187-193, nos. 40-42. The present clothes-press shows the combination of both ivory inlay and engraved-ivory veneers, representing the transitional phase between the earlier wholly-inlaid technique and the fashion for veneering a piece in its entirety, common to the later 18th century.