Beschreibung:

A rare Indo-Portuguese mother of pearl-inlaid wood cabinet
Gujarat, 17th Centuryof rectangular form with drop front opening to reveal seven drawers, each with gilt copper handle and decorated to the front with bands of mother of pearl quatrefoil motifs surrounded by plain borders, the exterior with panels containing alternating bands of mother of pearl quatrefoil and circle motifs surrounded by borders of mother of pearl triangle and circle motifs, the edges with gilt-copper mounts, gilt-copper lockplate, clasp, hasp and two gilt copper rings to front
32.3 x 24 x 20 cm.FootnotesProvenance
Private UK Collection, London.
Gujarat was known to be a centre for mother of pearl production as early as 1502 AD, when the ruler of Malindi, on the Indian Ocean coast of present-day Kenya, presented Vasco de Gama with a 'bedstead of Cambay, wrought with gold and mother of pearl, a very beautiful thing' (The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, London, 1869, quoted in Simon Digby, "The mother-of-pearl overlaid furniture of Gujarat: the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum", in Robert Skelton et al (ed.), Facets of Indian Art, London 1986, p. 215).
Gujarati mother-of-pearl work traditionally comprises two types of work: items either made of or covered in mother-of-pearl, and items consisting of a wooden article covered in a dark mastic and inset with pieces of mother-of-pearl, such as an exceptional tray sold at Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 6 October 2015, lot 102. The present lot, however, is extremely unusual because it is directly comparable with a type of cabinet, produced in Gujarat or Sindh in the 17th Century, inlaid with ivory and not mother of pearl. For an example of such a cabinet with a similar decorative scheme in ivory, see Christie's, Arts & Textiles of the Islamic & Indian Worlds, 11 October 2013, lot 619.