A BONE-INLAID CABINET WITH BRASS OPENWORK FITTINGS

GOA, WEST INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

Details

A BONE-INLAID CABINET WITH BRASS OPENWORK FITTINGS
GOA, WEST INDIA, 17TH CENTURY
Of rectangular form on four short rounded feet, the surface inlaid with bone and dark stained wood with a continuous design of stellar motifs contained within intersecting roundels, the front divided into nine equal rectangular panels with rounded bone-studded borders concealing eight drawers - one double height, all with double brass knobs and rosette openwork brass fittings, working locks, each side with fitted brass curved handle with similar openwork fitting, corners also with brass fittings
17¾ x 26¾ x 15¾in. (45 x 75.6 x 40cm.)

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Lot Essay

The attribution to Goa is in part based on the existence of purpose-built church furniture closely related in style which exists in the Sacristy of the Bom Jesus in Old Goa. The fitted chests of drawers and cabinets in the sacristy are likely to have been installed some time between 1654 when the sacristy was enlarged and 1698 when the catafalque of St. Francis Xavier was erected (Fernanda Castro Freire, 50 dos Melhores Mveis Portugueses, Chaves Ferrira - Publicaoes, S.A., Lisbon, 1995, p.54, quoted in Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, p. 57). A very similar inlaid cabinet with almost identical brass fittings is in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation which is also attributed to 17th Century Goa, (inv. 1550; Goa and the Great Mughal, exhibition catalogue, Lisbon, 2004, cat. 117, p. 111).

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