Lot 62
AN INDO-PORTUGUESE MOTHER-OF-PEARL DISH
INDIA, GUJARAT, 17TH CENTURY
Estimate: £2,000 - £3,000
Auction: 11 December 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
of shallow form with rounded sides on a short brass ring foot, composed of geometric sections of mother-of-pearl forming a central flowerhead, radiating panels around the sides, all sections pinned, verso with radiating panels, brass band around the rim
Dimensions
2.4cm high; 15.2cm diameter
Provenance
Select Property from Penicuik House, Midlothian, Scotland.
Penicuik Estate, situated to the south-west of Edinburgh at the foot of the Pentlands, has been owned by the Clerk family since the middle of the 17th century. In 1654 the merchant John Clerk (1611-1674), who had made his fortune in Paris, purchased the Estate with the existing house Newbiggin from the heirs of Margaret Scott, the Countess of Eglinton. In 1647 John Clerk married Mary Gray, fourth daughter of Sir William Gray of Pittendrum by whom he had five sons and five daughters. He married for a second time in 1670 to Elizabeth Johnston, and upon his death he was succeeded by his eldest son, John Clerk, who became the 1st Baronet in 1679.
Footnote
Mother-of-pearl was prized by the Portuguese settlers in Gujarat for its luminous and lustrous qualities, and they consequently commissioned craftsmen to decorate furniture, arms and armour, and whole dinner services with it, amongst other things.
At first, 19th century art historians believed these types of mother-of-pearl vessels were European due to their shape. However, a recorded example listed in an inventory dated to 1586 in the Dresden Green Vaults, shows that vessels of this style are known to have been brough to Europe as early as the 16th century. They were especially cherished by European nobility who exhibited them in their ‘kunstkammer’.
For similar scallop-edged dishes along with other shaped vessels decorated in mother-of-pearl in the Victoria and Albert Museum see accession numbers 4283-1857; similarly in the British Museum, see accession number OA+.2643.1-2. For a further discussion on the use of mother-of-pearl in India, see Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods From India: the art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, London: V&A, 2002, pp. 38-39.
