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Lot Essay
This kind of decoration is referred to as chini kana, a term meaning "China room", and applied to small wall-niches in which bottles, vases and other vessels were placed within a domestic interior.
Similar flasks, arranged in niches carved in red sandstone, are illustrated in M. Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, 1997, p. 185, pl. 269. This decoration can be seen at the Gate Pavilion of the Suraj Bhan ka Bagh at Sikandra near Agra and dates from the early seventeenth century. The exterior walls of another early seventeenth century palace at Sikandra, the Kanch Mahal, are also decorated with similar flasks in niches. According to Zebrowski, these motifs may originally have had a connection with the "waters of fertility" but it seems likely that by the seventeenth century they were appreciated more and simply for their elegant and stylised shapes. A comparable red sandstone chini kana panel was sold; Christie's London, 23 September 2005, lot 81.
Sir Howard Hodgkin C.H. C.B,E (1932-2017) was one of the most celebrated British artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. His interest in Indian and Islamic Arts was prolific and his passion for collecting was, after painting, his greatest joy, famously saying "Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers".
Similar flasks, arranged in niches carved in red sandstone, are illustrated in M. Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, 1997, p. 185, pl. 269. This decoration can be seen at the Gate Pavilion of the Suraj Bhan ka Bagh at Sikandra near Agra and dates from the early seventeenth century. The exterior walls of another early seventeenth century palace at Sikandra, the Kanch Mahal, are also decorated with similar flasks in niches. According to Zebrowski, these motifs may originally have had a connection with the "waters of fertility" but it seems likely that by the seventeenth century they were appreciated more and simply for their elegant and stylised shapes. A comparable red sandstone chini kana panel was sold; Christie's London, 23 September 2005, lot 81.
Sir Howard Hodgkin C.H. C.B,E (1932-2017) was one of the most celebrated British artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. His interest in Indian and Islamic Arts was prolific and his passion for collecting was, after painting, his greatest joy, famously saying "Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers".