DECCAN, CENTRAL INDIA, 16TH OR EARLY 17TH CENTURY

The elegant elongated proportions of this ewer, with its long tapering neck, pronounced collar and s-shape spout indicate an Indian, probably Deccani, attribution. The Butler Ewer, in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford shares with ours the distinctive shape and makara head finial, though includes in its decoration a spiral fluted body (catalogued variously as 16th and first half 17th century, Mark Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, London, 1997, p.147, no.189 and Navina Najat Haidar and Marika Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700. Opulence and Fantasy, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2015, p.128, cat.50). Similar vessels, fluted and otherwise, can be found depicted in 16th and early 17th century Deccani painting. See for example a group of vessels – two bottles and a ewer – which appear in the foreground of a drawing from Ahmadnagar, attributed to circa 1590-95 or the bottles next to the sleeping prince in a Bijapuri painting dated to the early 17th century (Navina Najat Haidar and Marika Sardar, op.cit., pp.68-69, cat.17 and p.118, cat.43). The vessels all share the same elongated form. In the first painting they are decorated with horizontally engraved registers similar to those found on our ewer, and in the second they are fluted like the Butler ewer. Whether this means a slightly earlier attribution for ours or whether the two designs were produced concurrently is uncertain.