An Ottoman mother of pearl and tortoiseshell casket

France, circa 1930 An fine early twentieth century Art Deco Lapis Lazuli casket with the interior lined in black slate, a Marshall trophy to the top and gilt bronze mounts, all supp...

Spain, 1890 A late nineteenth century Spanish wood and leather casket with foliate tooling throughout, the domed top depicting the Greek figures Scylla and Charybdis, the borders li...

Italy, circa 1970 An unusual nest of three tables of graduated size, the tops decorated with brown marble fossil tops, supported by brushed steel bases of geometric form. Height 46...

England, circa 1790 A fine pair of late eighteenth century mahogany serpentine commodes, the tops with satinwood crossbanding, each with a central oval medallion of fine mahogany fl...

France, circa 1820 An early nineteenth century mahogany bedside table with single drawer to frieze, white marble top surrounded by brass gallery, all supported on fluted cylindrical...

Italy, circa 1750 A rare pair of mid eighteenth century Tuscan octagonal frames, with residual traces of green paint and yellow ochre, the frames with graduated mouldings. Height ...

Featuring Alternating Panels From our Tea Caddy collection, we are delighted to offer this fine Regency Tortoiseshell and Mother of Pearl Serpentine Tea Caddy. The Tea Caddy of rect...

This precious 19th century English table casket features mother of pearl inlay and carved shell drawer pulls. The top of the piece is decorated with a pai...

English MOP carved casket box with abalone inlay. Velvet lining on 4 bracket feet

A very good quality and unusual Palais Royal gilt bronze and mother of pearl jewellery casket or trinket box dating from the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The box is in g...

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...

Vintage jewelry box in faux tessellated tortoise shell with mother-of-pearl and Abolone shell edge, circa 1970s. Simple, elegant and unique. Bin #N Jj