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Lot Essay
The ornament on ivory-inlaid furniture made in western India in the mid to late 17th century reflects more closely the Mughal court style than earlier examples from the region. The change in design was matched also by an improvement in the quality of the inlay itself. The rounded trees and dense foliage of earlier inlaid furniture, which was occasionally highlighted in pink or green-stained ivory, was replaced by rows of individual flowering plants executed in monochrome against a plain background as we see decorating the interior of our cabinet here.
This ‘flower style’ is commonly identified with the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, but was not a sudden or spontaneous emergence (Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods From India. The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, London, 2002, p.62). Rather it followed on from a long-standing Mughal appreciation for flowers that since the days of Akbar had manifested itself in courtly painting and decorative arts. It was under Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) however that the use of floral motifs were treated not as secondary decorative elements, but the primary focus of decoration. During his reign similar floral motifs to those seen on our cabinet were found on a wide variety of media – such as the borders of the famous later Shah Jahan albums (see for example those offered at Christie's London, most recently 26 October 2017, lots 180 and 181) or the decoration of buildings erected by the Emperor, such as the Saman Burj, Agra Fort (ca. 1637) or the Diwan-i ‘Amm in Ajmer as depicted in the Padshahnama (Milo Cleveland Beach and Ebba Koch, King of the World. The Padshahnama, exhibition catalogue, London, 1997, no.5, pp.28-29). By the second half of the 17th century similar motifs were popular also for cabinets (Basil Gray (ed.), The Arts of India, Oxford, 1981, p.180).
Around the end of the 17th century, two-door cabinets of this type replaced portable fall-front cabinets as the leading form produced by furniture makers in western India. This new configuration was introduced as the result of Western influence – where cabinets were increasingly devised as showpieces mounted on stands (Jaffer, op.cit., no.25, p.65). Whilst cabinets of this form, often lacquered or painted rather than inlaid, were certainly used in India, and there normally housed on the floor as depicted in Indian miniature paintings, many similar cabinets entered the collections of European aristocratic houses in the 17th and 18th centuries (Gray, op.cit., p.179).
A similar cabinet is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, on loan from Dr. and Mrs. Poteliakhoff (Amin Jaffer, op.cit., pp.64-65). Another was with Spink and Son (published Gray, op.cit., fig.195, p.178). Another sold at Christie’s, London, 23 April 2015, lot 113.
For a smaller example, and a short note on attribution, see lot 34 in this sale.
This ‘flower style’ is commonly identified with the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, but was not a sudden or spontaneous emergence (Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods From India. The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, London, 2002, p.62). Rather it followed on from a long-standing Mughal appreciation for flowers that since the days of Akbar had manifested itself in courtly painting and decorative arts. It was under Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) however that the use of floral motifs were treated not as secondary decorative elements, but the primary focus of decoration. During his reign similar floral motifs to those seen on our cabinet were found on a wide variety of media – such as the borders of the famous later Shah Jahan albums (see for example those offered at Christie's London, most recently 26 October 2017, lots 180 and 181) or the decoration of buildings erected by the Emperor, such as the Saman Burj, Agra Fort (ca. 1637) or the Diwan-i ‘Amm in Ajmer as depicted in the Padshahnama (Milo Cleveland Beach and Ebba Koch, King of the World. The Padshahnama, exhibition catalogue, London, 1997, no.5, pp.28-29). By the second half of the 17th century similar motifs were popular also for cabinets (Basil Gray (ed.), The Arts of India, Oxford, 1981, p.180).
Around the end of the 17th century, two-door cabinets of this type replaced portable fall-front cabinets as the leading form produced by furniture makers in western India. This new configuration was introduced as the result of Western influence – where cabinets were increasingly devised as showpieces mounted on stands (Jaffer, op.cit., no.25, p.65). Whilst cabinets of this form, often lacquered or painted rather than inlaid, were certainly used in India, and there normally housed on the floor as depicted in Indian miniature paintings, many similar cabinets entered the collections of European aristocratic houses in the 17th and 18th centuries (Gray, op.cit., p.179).
A similar cabinet is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, on loan from Dr. and Mrs. Poteliakhoff (Amin Jaffer, op.cit., pp.64-65). Another was with Spink and Son (published Gray, op.cit., fig.195, p.178). Another sold at Christie’s, London, 23 April 2015, lot 113.
For a smaller example, and a short note on attribution, see lot 34 in this sale.