Page 124 - ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND INDIAN WORLDS Carpets, Ceramics Objects, Christie's London Oct..27, 2022

~104
AN INDO-PORTUGUESE IVORY-INLAID EBONY CHEST Portuguese fascination for intricate and concentrated designs that recall
GOA OR GUJARAT, INDIA, LATE 17TH OR EARLY 18TH CENTURY textiles, and for ornamentation covering the entire surface of an object. It is
The sides, top and front decorated with inlaid scrolling foliage emerging from comparable with writing boxes and cabinets produced in Gujarat and Sindh
θ 102 vases, animals, birds, floral borders, and caryatids, the interior of the hinged in the 16th and 17th centuries, see for instance, a small fall-front cabinet in
PRAYER BOOK front similarly decorated on the inside and revealing six drawers faced with the Victoria & Albert Museum (317-1866). The green-tinted ivory, also seen
INDIA, KASHMIR, LATE 18TH CENTURY similar floral and animal decoration with ivory handles on our chest, is associated with Mughal-inspired Gujarati designs. The
16in. (40.5) x 15in. (38.3) x 19¡in. (49.3cm.)
A collection of prayers, Arabic manuscript on sculptural treatment of the corner caryatid figures are very typical of the
paper, 126ff. plus four flyleaves, each folio with £20,000-30,000 US$23,000-34,000 work found on Indo-Portuguese furniture.
14ll. of elegant black naskh on gold ground within €23,000-34,000
gold and blue rules, headings in white naskh on
Whilst contemporaraneous export interest for these items focussed on
blue and gold cartouches, the opening folio with
PROVENANCE: the Portuguese market, the fashion for Indo-Portuguese furniture in the
gold and polychrome illuminated headpiece and
By repute, purchased by John Walthew, Mayor of Stockport, on a trip to India United Kingdom reached its height much later in the 1880s following
gold stenciling in the margins, flyleaves with later
and Ceylon, 1873-4 two exhibitions held at the South Kensington Museum, the ‘Special Loan
owners' notes, in original lacquered binding with
Bequeathed to his daughter, Emmeline Cunliffe (d.1937), and thence by
golden ground decorated with floral motifs, gold Exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Ornamental Art’ in 1881, and the
descent
floral decoration to doublures ‘Colonial and Indian Exhibition’ in 1886.
Text panel 5q x 2.6/8in. (13.9 x 7cm.);
The production and distribution of this style of inlaid furniture can be
folio 6æ x 3¬in. (17.2 x 9.2cm.) A number of comparable seventeenth-century inlaid pieces include a cabinet
traced to Western India, a well-established centre of luxury items that
£4,000-6,000 US$4,600-6,900 traded with merchants from Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia. in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Flores and Vasallo e Silva, op.cit, p.113)
€4,600-6,800 and a chest in the Fundação Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva, Lisbon (Flores
Contemporary accounts vary regarding the location of the ateliers, signifying
and Silva, op.cit, p.113). A Goanese cabinet with illustrious provenance,
perhaps that there were several centres sharing methods of production and
having been in three European royal houses, Braganza, Saxe-Coburg and
producing similar styles.
Hohenzollern, was decorated in an extremely similar fashion sold in these
th
Rooms, 30 January 2019, lot 25. Another, the Leyland Cabinet, sold in these
These intricately crafted chests and cabinets appealed to both local and
Rooms 6 July 2017, lot 18. A chest of almost identical form and design sold at
foreign tastes alike. Documents and portrait miniatures show Mughal rulers
Christie’s, South Kensington, 6 July 2008, lot 297.
th
with European-style furniture, for instance a 17 century Portrait of Rustam
102 Khan in the Chester Beatty library (See Jorge Flores and Nuno Vassallo e This lot contains elephant ivory material and is offered with the benefit of being
Silva (eds.), Goa and The Great Mughal, exhibition catalogue, Lisbon, 2004, registered as ‘exempt’ in the UK in accordance with the UK Ivory Act. Please note
pp. 111-115). that it is your responsibility to determine and satisfy the requirements of any
θ 103
applicable regulations relating to the export or import of any lot you purchase.
A CONCERTINA-BOUND KHATT-I NAKHUNI
th
th
17 and 18 century European inventories suggest that there was a
(FINGERNAIL) ALBUM considerable amount of “Indo-Portuguese” work made in Goa and other
SIGNED MUZAFFAR 'ALI BEG, INDIA, Portuguese cities on the west coast of India. This box demonstrates the
e cities on the west coast of India. This box demonstrates the
AH 1285/1868-69 AD
Urdu poetry in relief work on paper, 12ff. each with 6 or
7ll. of nasta'liq in khatt-i nakhuni, mounted in green card
concertina album, within gold, white and black rules,
pages divided by gold and polychrome vertical rules,
colophon signed and dated, lacquered binding, the
exterior with a floral composition within green border,
the doublures with a floral spray on a black ground
Text block 6æ x 4¿in. (17.3 x 10.5cm.); folio 8w x 5qin.
(22.7 x 14.2cm.)
£5,000-7,000 US$5,800-8,000
€5,700-8,000
Created with no ink, pigments, gold or brushes,
the nakhuni technique is an extremely elegant and
minimalistic method which only involves a sheet of
plain paper and the artist’s fingers. Extant examples
of this art illustrate its productions in India, Turkey and
Afghanistan, as well as Iran. Our album is of Indian
origin and encompasses an Urdu qasida. According to
the colophon, it was commissioned by Sayyid Nizam
al-Din Husayn Sahib between the two eids of the
103
year AH 1285. The calligrapher is Muzaffar ‘Ali Beg,
a well-known calligrapher who lived in India and died
in AH 1289/1872-73 AD, therefore having completed
this album during the last yeas of his life. He was
celebrated for his nakhuni technique and is listed by
Karimzadeh Tabrizi (M.A.Karimzadeh Tabrizi, The
Lives and Art of Old Painters of Iran, Vol. III, London,
1985,p.1170). A recent example of an Indian khatt-i-
nakhuni prayer book was sold in these Rooms,
31 March 2022, lot 88.
122 In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium (plus VAT) is payable. Other taxes and/or an Artist Resale Royalty 123
fee are also payable if the lot has a tax or λ symbol. Check Section D of the Conditions of Sale at the back of this catalogue.