GUJARAT, NORTHWEST INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

This cabinet is executed in the same technique as a finely decorated game board, attributed to Gujarat or Sindh and dated to the 16th century which sold at Christie’s, London, 5 October 2010, lot 361. In 1626, Franceso Pelsaert wrote that in Sindh ‘draught-boards, writing cases, and similar goods are manufactured locally in large quantities; they are very prettily inlaid with ivory and ebony, and used to be exported in large quantities to Goa and the coast towns’ (The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, p.32, quoted in Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, London, 2002, p.21). A board executed in the same technique as the present cabinet is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv.no.1961.1899). They are inlaid with ivory and sadeli, a micro-mosaic of woods and metals arranged in geometric patterns. This technique is particularly associated with the Near and Middle East, from where it spread east to Iran and India and west to Italy (where it was known as alla certosina).