MARK OF OOMERSI MAWJI, KUTCH, LATE 19TH CENTURY

Oomersi Mawji is perhaps the most revered Indian silversmith. By the 1860’s, he was appointed the court silversmith of the Maharaja of Kutch. While the province of Kutch was a prominent center of silver manufactury, often exported to parts of Europe, Mawji is credited for elevating the level of quality now associated with this region in the nineteenth century. Depicting animals in motion was a popular subject matter for Kutch silversmiths of this time, but Mawji’s inventiveness and whimsy was unrivaled. His sons later joined the firm, and together they exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, in 1878. The popularity of the firm grew, and their designs were eventually produced by retailers such as Liberty & Co. in London. After his death in 1890, his son’s continued working for the firm before it closed in the 1930’s. Works manufactured by Oomersi Mawji and sons are can be found in institutional collections around the world, including the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Mrs. Almuth Dold was the former housekeeper and caretaker of Robert Ripley's home in Mamaroneck, New York. In a 1940 interview and tour of the house for The New Yorker, Geoffrey T. Hellman wrote, "[Ripley's] equally odd housekeeper, Mrs. Almuth Dold, formerly the wife of a Russian baron, once in a Turkish harem as a guest and finely cultivated in the arts of graphology, astrology, palmistry, phrenology, numerology and tea leaves." In that same interview, Dold told Hellman that the most unusual thing in the house was Mr. Ripley himself.