Page 110 - ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND INDIAN WORLDS Carpets, Ceramics Objects, Christie's London Oct..27, 2022

92 94
BANI THANI A FINE GREEN JADE LIDDED JAR
KISHANGARH, RAJASTHAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1770 MUGHAL INDIA, 17TH CENTURY
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, laid down on card The globular body carved with flowers, serrated leaf forms to the sides rising reached their full artistic potential under Emperor Shah Jahan (r.1628-58)
10º x 7ºin. (26 x 18.5cm.) to the shoulders and terminating in curled floral-bud shaped lug handles, the with artisans continuing to use floral imagery and Mughal jades displaying a
base carved as a flowerhead, the circular lid terminating in a bud-shaped finial more delicate manner of execution and a greater sophistication of technique.
£6,000-8,000 US$6,900-9,100 4in. (10.2cm.) high
€6,900-9,100
£25,000-30,000 US$29,000-34,000 A comparable dark green lidded jar of rounded form with engraved bands
€29,000-34,000 of leaves and bud-shaped handles, dating from circa 1675, is in the British
PROVENANCE:
Spink and Son, London, 1997 Library (inv. no. 1945, 1017.258.a-b). The serrated leaves to the sides of
This delicately carved lidded jar is a fine example of the hardstone carvings
Private London Collection our jar rising to form handles can also be compared with a spinach green
that were popular in the Mughal period, from the reign of the Emperor Akbar.
jade bowl produced during the reign of Shah Jahan, probably dating from
It is thought that nephrite and related hardstones were introduced to the
The legendary beauty of Bani Thani, the concubine of Raja Sawant Singh of Kishangarh circa 1640-50, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.76.2.2.;
Mughals in the mid-sixteenth century when a Khotanese jade merchant
(r.1748-57), was most famously captured by Nihal Chand in an iconic painting which Stephen Markel (ed.), The World of Jade, Mumbai, 1992, no.11, p.57). A pale
‘visited the Emperor Akbar’s court and enabled the Mughals to indulge a
today is kept in the National Museum, New Delhi. Chand’s depiction combined the green carved jade bowl of similar form with lug handles is in the Al-Sabah
taste for jade already acquired by their Timurid ancestors in Central Asia’
aesthetics of side-profile Mughal portraiture with the exaggerated features of Indian Collection in Kuwait (Keene, 2002, no.9.18, p.117). Another close comparable
(Joseph M. Dye III, The Arts of India, Virginia, 2001, p.408). The production of
statuary. Navina Haidar suggests that the enlarged eyes of his portrait may have is a pale green nephrite jade lidded pot of rounded form, engraved with
Mughal jade carvings flourished under the patronage of Jahangir (r.1605-
taken inspiration from the symbolic importance of eyes in Indian poetry and ritual (N. flowers and leaves in low relief, with similar flower-bud handles and circular
1628). He actively collected fifteenth century Timurid and Chinese metal
Haidar in M. C. Beach et al., Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1911, New York, 2011, lid with bud-shaped finial. The pot, dated to circa 1800, is in the collection
and ceramic vessels inscribing them with his titles and poetic verses. The
p. 602). The distinctive features of Nihal Chand’s rendering of Bani Thani can be seen of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (acc. no. 02560:1/(IS) and
jade wine cups produced early in his reign often imitated these earlier forms.
on Kishangarh paintings from the later eighteenth century, often transfigured into the 02560:2/(IS)).
Floral and vegetal forms in jade carving began to appear later in his reign
Hindu deity Radha. A full-body portrait of her sold at Bonhams, New York, 18 March
after his visit to the lush green valleys of Kashmir in 1620. Mughal jades
2013, lot 94. A charcoal and ink drawing of her with Sawant Singh was also sold at
Sotheby’s, New York, 15 March 2017, lot 293.
*93
A BIDRI HOOKAH BASE
92 BIDAR, DECCAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1700
Of spherical form with slightly flared and cusped cylindrical mouth with pronounced
boss, the main body with a design of swimming fish, peacocks and palm trees, the mouth
with a similar design, the shoulder with a band of meandering vine issuing flowerheads,
some loss of inlay, later associated foot
7¬in. (19.5cm.) high.
£7,000-10,000 US$8,100-11,000
€8,000-11,000
Bidriware is perhaps the most distinctive luxury good that was produced in the Deccan
(M. Sardar and N. Haidar, Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy,
New York, 2015, p.179). It is formed of an alloy of 90% zinc cast with lead, copper and
tin, into the surface of which a pattern is incised and silver, as here, or brass hammered
in. The background is then covered in a paste of guarded formula including mud from
the river Manjira and polished, giving the final object its distinctive black sheen.
The present example is a common early form but employs charming and very unusual
decoration. The majority of the hookah base is given over to a water-effect ground
populated with fish, peacocks, and divided by palm trees. Similar trees have a history
of being used strongly in Deccani painting, appearing for example in an Aurangabad
th
Ragamala painting from the late 16 century in the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art (M.90.141.2). The form of the trees relates our hookah base closely to a small group
of other Bidri vessels, many of which have been attributed by Mark Zebrowski to a
single workshop (Mark Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, London,
1988, comment pp.229-232, nos.369-372, pp.228-8, col.pls.509 and 510). Two of
these are hookah bases of similar form to the present, but with touches of brass inlay
and the shorter mouth that Zebrowski regards as an indicator of the earliest dating,
one is a drop-shaped hookah base and one a mango-shaped flask. He also publishes
a bottle with similar decoration but without brass inlay that he dates to the early 18th
century (op.cit., no.286 and col.pl.511). To this group can be added another spherical
hookah base which was recently on the London market (Simon Ray, Islamic and Indian
Works of Art, London, 2015, no.28, pp.66-69). Lacking brass inlay and with a different
handling of the silver inlay, especially the amount of engraving of silver that took place
after the inlay, it was attributed to a master of the generation immediately after the one
93 discussed by Zebrowski. All these vessels have highly original landscape decoration,
one including figures, all including animals or birds.
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