Lot 53
A SILVER-INLAID COPPER ALLOY BIDRI HOOKAH BASE DECORATED WITH POPPY SPRAYS
INDIA, DECCAN, BIDAR, LATE 18TH/ EARLY 19TH CENTURY
£3,024
Auction: 11 December 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
of rounded form, the truncated neck flaring with moulding and neck ring, decorated in silver inlay with a bold frieze of stylised poppy sprays, the shoulder with a meandering floral vine, the neck with further poppy sprays
Dimensions
17.5cm high
Provenance
Formerly, a Private German Collection.
Footnote
Stylised Hyderabad poppies were frequently depicted in eighteenth century Deccani decorative arts and often used in the foreground gardens of Hyderabad paintings. A bell-shaped huqqa base with almost identical poppies in the aftabi technique is illustrated in Mark Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, London, 1997, p.237, ill.398.
