Indo-Portuguese Tortoisshell, Mother Of Pearl Inlaid Table Cabinet

Project Details

Indo-Portuguese Tortoisshell, Mother Of Pearl Inlaid Table Cabinet

India
17th-18th Century
33.6 x 52 x 36 cm.

Inlaid with panels of tortoiseshell and plaques of mother-of-pearl with bold cartouches surrounded by polygons and divided by narrow micro-mosaic borders, drop front revealing twelve drawers of various sizes with silver palmette handles, functioning key for lock. Portable fall-front cabinets such as the present one were favoured by European patrons and traders living and travelling in Asia.

Many of these cabinets were made in Gujarat and Sind, in the 16th and early 17th century, as attested by travellers including William Finch, who cited Gujarat as a leading centre of fine inlay work. See, William Finch, Early Travels in India 1583-1619, ed. William Foster, London, 1921, p. 173.

These cabinets were often profusely inlaid with luxury materials such as tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ebony and rare woods. Furniture from this part of the world was widely traded, often being used in wealthy German and English households of the 17th century. See, Amin Jaffar’s Luxury Goods From India: The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, V&A, 2002, pp. 18 and 28. The present cabinet which is very high quality is unusual for its extensive use of tortoiseshell. A comparable seventeenth-century Indo-Portuguese cabinet is in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. See, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14843A.

Another 17th century cabinet with large panels of tortoiseshell is in the Museu Municipal de Viana do Castelo, Porto, Portugal. See, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Luxury for Export: Artistic Exchange Between India and Portugal Around 1600, Periscope Publishing, 2008.

Categories: Metalwork & Woodwork

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Indo-Portuguese Tortoisshell, Mother Of Pearl Inlaid Table Cabinet

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