ANGLO-INDIAN IVORY INLAID SANDALWOOD 'SADELI' WORKBOX, BOMBAY Y
LATE 18TH CENTURY
Auction: Day Two | Thurs 4th Sept at 10am | Lots 403 to 727
Description
of rectangular form with a domed lid and fine swing handles to either side, decorated overall with geometric inlays, the sandalwood fitted interior divided into various covered compartments fitted with ivory and sadeli lids, ivory pots, spools and a pin cushion, the lid with a concealed velvet lined compartment and the body with a lower drawer, set on metal paw bracket feet
Dimensions
43cm wide, 18cm high, 30cm deep
Footnote
Workboxes, portable writing desks, inkstands and jewellery boxes were among the variety of items decorated with geometric micromosaic patterns, called sadeli. Although the generic term “Bombay boxes” is used for a range of boxes decorated in this fashion, production was not limited to Bombay, as Amin Jaffer points out (Jaffer, 2001, p. 313). Sadeli boxes were popular souvenirs with travellers to India and Queen Charlotte owned three sadeli boxes “of Bombay work”, Amin Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the V&A and the Peabody Essex Museum, 2001, p. 314.
The sadeli technique came to India from Shiraz in the sixteenth century. It consists of binding together lengths of geometrically shaped rods of diverse materials such as tin, copper, horn, ivory, sappan wood and ebony arranged in symmetrical geometric patterns. These rods are sliced through transversely and formed into thin sheets of repeating patterns that are laid over and glued to the wooden carcass.
Please be aware that this lot contains material which may be subject to import/export restrictions, especially outside the EU, due to CITES regulations. Please note it is the buyer's sole responsibility to obtain any relevant export or import licence. For more information visit http://www.defra.gov.uk/ahvla-en/imports-exports/cites/
Sold in compliance with UK Government and APHA regulations, with (non-transferable) exemption registration reference ~