BENARES, LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The present hilt uses enamels of a very distinctive palette. There are three basic colours - pink, green and white. The green ground is found on a number of early enamelled vessels, notably a covered jar in Cleveland (Mark Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, London, 1997, pl.29, p.52). The shading of the enamels that is found here, particularly in the pink, appears to be a later feature, and is typical of Benares. The pink enamel of Benares was apparently introduced in the late 18th century by Qaysar Agha, an Afghan from Kabul, who had learnt the craft from Persian enamellers. The pink motifs, normally flowers and buds as here, were painted on white enamel with brushes made of squirrels' tail hair. By the 1880s the craft was almost non-existent and the last great Benares enameller, Babbu Singh, died in 1923 (Pedro Moura Carvalho, Gems and Jewels of Mughal India. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, 2010, p.128). A pair of anklets in the Khalili Collection share very similar decoration to ours, with the elegant pink flower and small gold accents painted directly onto the green (Carvalho, op. cit., no.54, p.129). Those are attributed to the 19th century.

Another jeweled tulwar, although without the elegant ground of enamel that ours has, is in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Joseph M. Dye III, The Arts of India, Virginia, 2001, no.199, p.423). A hilt and chape, again without the enamel, but with similar floral spray to the chape is in the Al-Sabah Collection, catalogued as 2nd-3rd quarter 17th century (Keene, op.cit, no.13.9, p.148). An elegantly enameled tulwar recently sold in these Rooms, 4 October 2012, lot 189.