Indo-Portuguese Mother-of-Pearl Dish, Gujarat, Mughal Period, 17th Century

This uniquely beautiful Northern Italian mortar was carved from a solid block of Breccia marble. On each of the sides are four fancifully and intricately carved charming and expressive owls. This is a wonderful example of an everyday object made with beauty in mind, likely made for a noble families house in the North of Italy. Mortars were used in the kitchens or in apothecaries to crush herbs into powder for medicinal purposes. This highly sculptural and unique piece would be suitable today as a magnificent decoration on a table or mantle, or to grace the counter of an open kitchen design...

A French Napoleon III (Second Empire) papier mâché black painted, gilded and mother-of-pearl inlaid frame, France, circa 1880 Size: 17 1/2" h...

A charming and whimsical Italian 1950's bamboo basket, large and with wonderful design. Italy, circa 1950 Size: 19 3/4" high x 24" wide x 12 1/2" deep

A charming Italian 1950's bamboo and wood hand-crafted basket with handle. Italy, circa 1950 Size: 23" high x 14" wide x 12 3/4" deep

A pair of carved, gilt and painted blue and white Portuguese wood cabinet doors mounted as pier mirrors, circa 1800, with carved arch, cups and coral o...

A grand scale French provincial terracotta Biot Jar produced in the Biot region of southern France. With its original yellow glazed rim and traces of ochre colored glaze dripping thr...

An exceptional Indo-Portuguese colonial mother-of-pearl veneered casket with silver mounts India, Gujarat, 2nd half of the 16th century, the silver mounts Goa or probably Lisbon Measures: H. 16 x W. 24.6 x D. 16.1 cm An exceptional Gujarati casket with a rectangular box and truncated pyramidal lid (with slopes on each side and a flat top) made from exotic wood, probably teak (Tectona grandis), covered with a mother-of-pearl mosaic. The tesserae, cut from the shell of the green turban sea snail (Turbo marmoratus, a marine gastropod) in the shape of fish scales, are pinned to the wooden structure with silver ball-headed nails. The casket is set on bracket feet on the corners. The masterfully engraved decoration of the silver mounts follows the most refined and erudite Mannerist repertoire of rinceaux and ferroneries dating from the mid-16th century. The high quality and refinement of the silver mounts and, likewise, the silver nails that replaced the original brass pins used to hold the mother-of-pearl tesserae in place indicate the work of a silversmith probably working in Lisbon in the second half of the 16th century. The Indian origin of this production, namely from Cambay (Khambhat) and Surat in the present state of Gujarat in north India, is, as for the last three decades, consensual and fully demonstrated, not only by documentary and literary evidence - such as descriptions, travelogues and contemporary archival documentation - but also by the survival in situ of 16th-century wooden structures covered in mother-of-pearl tesserae. A fine example is a canopy decorating the tomb (dargah) of the Sufi saint, Sheik Salim Chisti (1478-1572) in Fatehpur Sikri in Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. This is an artistic production, geometric in character and Islamic in nature, where usually the mother-of-pearl tesserae form complex designs of fish scales or, similar to the dishes also made using the same technique, with the thin brass sheets and pins, stylized lotus flowers. The truncated pyramidal shape corresponds, like their contemporary tortoiseshell counterparts also made in Gujarat, to a piece of furniture used in the Indian subcontinent within the Islamic world prior to the arrival of the first Portuguese. This shape, in fact, is very old and peculiar to East-Asian caskets, chests or boxes used to contain and protect Buddhist texts, the sutras. A similar chest is the famous and large reliquary chest from Lisbon cathedral that once contained the relics of the city's patron saint, Saint Vincent. Both match in shape, having the same kind of socle or pedestal and bracket feet, and in their engraved silver mountings, featuring the same type of refined, erudite decoration. Their differences lie in the silver borders that frame the entire length of the edges of the chest (both the box and the lid), pinned with silver nails, and on the lock plate, shaped like a coat of arms in the Lisbon example. Given the exceptional dimensions of the reliquary casket...

Elegant Napoleon III French bronze tazza dish, with fine engraving in geometric shapes. Nice old patina. Very decorative object. In good condition.  

Large brass circular alms dish having an ornate circular rim with hand tooled decoration, and a shaped dish center with raised flower decoration to the middle. Nuremberg 16th/17th ce...

17th century Brass Alms Dish C1600 alms dish of good colour from Germany Dimensions 50cms diameter

Sharing with you a very nice example of the Edo period. A scene of a deer in a landscape under an overhanging pine tree. Objects and flowers in the rim and moulded outer rim. Additi...

A Dutch Delft Lobed Dish, Late 17th Century Eric Knowles Comments. Despite the flake chip this dish is a remarkable survivor, they are almost invaria...