BIDAR, DECCAN, CENTRAL INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

Very few examples of bidri decorated with figural motifs are known. A small group was published by Mark Zebrowski in his seminal work Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India (London, 1997, pp.228-230, pl.369-72, 410 and 509-11). That group included four huqqas and a lime box, four of which had figural ornament and all of which he attributed to the same workshop (and possibly craftsman) active in the 17th century. Our huqqa base finds a number of close parallels with that small group. Not only is the overall division of space the same, each with riverbanks lined with trees, pavilions and figures in a way the John Robert Alderman describes as reminiscent of a ‘Qur’anic ideal of the pleasure garden’, but it also bears similarity in its individual details (Navina Najat Haidar and Marika Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700. Opulence and Fantasy, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2015, pp.186-88). Three of the huqqas in Zebrowski’s group contain as part of their decorative repertoire, ‘pleasure pavilions…decorated with niches replete with flasks’ (Zebrowski, op.cit., p.230). We see this on our huqqa, with vessels clearly reserved against a silver ground. Our huqqa contains a number of animals and figures, simply but powerfully rendered, often with long narrow eyes. This is also found on a number of the Zebrowski examples, see for instance pl.369 which has similar elephants - there battling, on ours ridden by a mahout (Zebrowski, op.cit., p.228). The way that larger areas, such as the river, are filled with a series of repeated lines is again closely comparable. It seems likely that our huqqa is another example of the work of this unusual and imaginative workshop.