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Lot Essay
The Persian verses on the sides and on the lid translate:
Your ambergris like mole [around your lips] came and put a seal on that box / [then] your lips put a lock of ruby on that treasure box / in the treasure box of pearl the agate of your lips did put the pendant of life / and, as your lips found the jewellery box very precious, treasured it in a secret place
Gujarat is first mentioned as the centre of mother-of-pearl work in 1502, when the King of Melinde, on the East Coast of Africa, presented Vasco de Gama with a 'bedstead of Cambay, wrought with gold and mother of pearl, a very beautiful thing' (The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, London, 1869, quoted in Simon Digby, 'The mother-of-pearl overlaid furniture of Gujarat; the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum', in Robert Skelton et. al (ed.), Facets of Indian Art, London, 1986, p.215). This box belongs to a group of wood objects covered in a dark mastic and inset with pieces of mother-of-pearl and generally thought of as the speciality of Northern Gujarat, particularly around Ahmedabad, Cambay, Surat and further west in Thattha. This attribution is largely due both to European travellers' accounts and to Abu'l Fazl's Ain-i Akbari, the celebrated historical work on the Akbar period written around 1595. That work refers to the province of Ahmedabad as a centre for exports including articles worked with mother-of-pearl. This geographical attribution is further evidenced by the survival of mastic-inset and mother-of-pearl decorated domed cenotaph canopies which survive in the tombs of revered Sufi Shaykhs including Shah 'Alam at Rasulabad and Shaykh Ahmad Khattu at Sarkhej, both close to Ahmedabad and erected between 1605 and 1608 (Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India. The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, London, 2002, p.24).
In his discussion of this group, Digby writes that due to the fragile nature of the medium only around 30 recorded examples of this type of work exist, now almost entirely in museums. Their decoration most frequently takes the form of vegetal or geometric designs. Relatively few are inscribed in the manner seen here. The known example that are inscribed are on the whole pen boxes, one of which was sold in these Rooms, 7 April 2011, lot 225. Others are in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gifted to them by Joan Palevksy (Digby, op.cit., fig.3, p.216) and the Benaki Museum (Benaki Museum. A Guide to the Museum of Islamic Art, Athens, 2006, no. 248, p.180). The Benaki example, which is in fact bears the date 1587, has a companion piece in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington (Susan Stronge, Made for Mughal Emperors. Royal Treasures from Hindustan, London, 2010, pl.143, p.181). All of these share similar vegetal ornament in the background, with dense comma-shaped leaves springing from curling stems. Though metaphorical, the inscription on the pen box that sold in these Rooms in 2011 referred many times to the pen and to script, alluding to the function of the object. This perhaps indicates that the inscription on this box, which refers to precious stones and jewellery, suggest use as a jewellery box.
The inspiration for Gujarati mother-of-pearl production remains unclear. A suggestion is that East Asian examples, such as Korean sutra boxes (caskets with bevelled lids, some attributed to the 12th-13th century), were imported to Western India, where the technique was emulated by local craftsmen. A variety of forms were produced, such as coffers, caskets, cabinets, penboxes, shields, a throne, gameboards, a bookrest, a large dish and even a pair of sandals.
Your ambergris like mole [around your lips] came and put a seal on that box / [then] your lips put a lock of ruby on that treasure box / in the treasure box of pearl the agate of your lips did put the pendant of life / and, as your lips found the jewellery box very precious, treasured it in a secret place
Gujarat is first mentioned as the centre of mother-of-pearl work in 1502, when the King of Melinde, on the East Coast of Africa, presented Vasco de Gama with a 'bedstead of Cambay, wrought with gold and mother of pearl, a very beautiful thing' (The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, London, 1869, quoted in Simon Digby, 'The mother-of-pearl overlaid furniture of Gujarat; the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum', in Robert Skelton et. al (ed.), Facets of Indian Art, London, 1986, p.215). This box belongs to a group of wood objects covered in a dark mastic and inset with pieces of mother-of-pearl and generally thought of as the speciality of Northern Gujarat, particularly around Ahmedabad, Cambay, Surat and further west in Thattha. This attribution is largely due both to European travellers' accounts and to Abu'l Fazl's Ain-i Akbari, the celebrated historical work on the Akbar period written around 1595. That work refers to the province of Ahmedabad as a centre for exports including articles worked with mother-of-pearl. This geographical attribution is further evidenced by the survival of mastic-inset and mother-of-pearl decorated domed cenotaph canopies which survive in the tombs of revered Sufi Shaykhs including Shah 'Alam at Rasulabad and Shaykh Ahmad Khattu at Sarkhej, both close to Ahmedabad and erected between 1605 and 1608 (Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India. The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, London, 2002, p.24).
In his discussion of this group, Digby writes that due to the fragile nature of the medium only around 30 recorded examples of this type of work exist, now almost entirely in museums. Their decoration most frequently takes the form of vegetal or geometric designs. Relatively few are inscribed in the manner seen here. The known example that are inscribed are on the whole pen boxes, one of which was sold in these Rooms, 7 April 2011, lot 225. Others are in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gifted to them by Joan Palevksy (Digby, op.cit., fig.3, p.216) and the Benaki Museum (Benaki Museum. A Guide to the Museum of Islamic Art, Athens, 2006, no. 248, p.180). The Benaki example, which is in fact bears the date 1587, has a companion piece in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington (Susan Stronge, Made for Mughal Emperors. Royal Treasures from Hindustan, London, 2010, pl.143, p.181). All of these share similar vegetal ornament in the background, with dense comma-shaped leaves springing from curling stems. Though metaphorical, the inscription on the pen box that sold in these Rooms in 2011 referred many times to the pen and to script, alluding to the function of the object. This perhaps indicates that the inscription on this box, which refers to precious stones and jewellery, suggest use as a jewellery box.
The inspiration for Gujarati mother-of-pearl production remains unclear. A suggestion is that East Asian examples, such as Korean sutra boxes (caskets with bevelled lids, some attributed to the 12th-13th century), were imported to Western India, where the technique was emulated by local craftsmen. A variety of forms were produced, such as coffers, caskets, cabinets, penboxes, shields, a throne, gameboards, a bookrest, a large dish and even a pair of sandals.