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Lot Essay
This toilet glass is one among a small group of related examples originating from the East Indian port of Vizagapatam in the first half of the 18th century. A toilet glass is a small cabinet with a swinging mirror which usually sat on a lady's dressing table. Such furniture was often highly decorative and personalised. Vizagapatam was a fine natural harbour a regular port of call on trading routes. It was also renowned for its cabinet-making industry which combined western forms with Indian ornamentation, in particular inlaying wood with floral designs in ivory, the ivory being engraved and highlighted with lac, as seen in our example (Amin Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, pp. 172-175).
Wooden furniture produced in Vizagapatam is characterised by ivory decoration which usually takes the form of dense trailing flowers, large densely foliated trees issuing from urns and fantastic animals and birds inlaid on teak, padouk, rosewood or ebony which were all readily available in the port. Our piece, with its profuse inlay of floral motifs and arched mirror plate, is among the earliest known examples of its type. A very similar example of comparable early date is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv.no.49.1905). An exceptional Vizagapatam cabinet was sold in these Rooms, 7 July, 2011, lot 14.
Wooden furniture produced in Vizagapatam is characterised by ivory decoration which usually takes the form of dense trailing flowers, large densely foliated trees issuing from urns and fantastic animals and birds inlaid on teak, padouk, rosewood or ebony which were all readily available in the port. Our piece, with its profuse inlay of floral motifs and arched mirror plate, is among the earliest known examples of its type. A very similar example of comparable early date is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv.no.49.1905). An exceptional Vizagapatam cabinet was sold in these Rooms, 7 July, 2011, lot 14.