拍品專文
This box has been converted at some point from more standard fall-front cabinet form. Fall-front cabinets and boxes with similar decorative motifs are commonly attributed to Gujarat or Sindh, notably on the basis of the contemporary accounts of European travelers to India. According to the Dutch merchant Francisco Pelsaerts, Tatta in Sindh, was in 1626 a centre of manufacture for 'ornamental desks[and]writing cases very prettily inlaid with ivory and ebony' whilst Surat, in Gujarat, was, according to James Ovington, a source of 'Desks, Sutores and Boxes neatly polisht and embellisht' in the late 1680's (Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, London, 2002, p. 18).
The small partridges that flank each of the trees on the drawers of this cabinet are closely comparable to those on one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated to the early 17th century (no. 15, Jaffer, op. cit., p. 44-45). The general design of the exterior however with the central cusped cartouche on the front and the eight pointed stars on each side relate more closely to a cabinet that was sold in Christie's, Paris, 18 December 2007, lot 133.
The small partridges that flank each of the trees on the drawers of this cabinet are closely comparable to those on one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated to the early 17th century (no. 15, Jaffer, op. cit., p. 44-45). The general design of the exterior however with the central cusped cartouche on the front and the eight pointed stars on each side relate more closely to a cabinet that was sold in Christie's, Paris, 18 December 2007, lot 133.