Anglo-Indian Hand Carved Vizagapatam Mughal Style Box
$750.00
Anglo-Indian box finely hand carved with a lion. A Nice Indian Mughal style pen box finely hand carved. The interior lined with blue velvet the whole exhibiting very fine workmanship. This fine late Victorian Anglo-Indian box from India is in great condition for it age. A beautiful example of an Anglo-Indian craftsmanship. Wonderful condition throughout, circa 1940. History of the Anglo-Indian Boxes Beginning in the early part of the 18th century, Indian artisans made what came to be known as Anglo-Indian boxes for the English residents living in India, who eventually brought or sent them back to England. At the beginning of the 19th century, India began exporting these boxes commercially, although not in any significant numbers until the 1850s. People valued them so highly that manufacturers of tins copied the designs on them in the late 19th and early 20th century. From Vizagapatam in East India, Bombay in West India. English traders discovered the rich woods and intricate workmanship of Indian artisans, so colonial government officials began to recognize the work of the Indian artists and craftsmen as a source for satisfying the need for furniture and boxes, which would both serve to enhance English households in India. This gave rise to the cabinetmaking workshops in Vizagapatam between Calcutta and Madras. Craftsmen made the first boxes to be decorated with Sadeli mosaic of rosewood or ebony with ivory, incised to give further definition to the decoration, directly inlaid into the wood. The shape of the early boxes was either sloping at the front with a flatter section at the back, reminiscent of English writing slopes, or rectangular. Artisans inlaid the borders with stylized floral scrolls and the centers with a single floral motif following a circular or oval symmetrical or asymmetrical pattern. Made in Vizagapatam, situated on the south east coast of India, near Madras Retailed in Madras and Calcutta by the English and Dutch East India Companies.
