Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 172Ф,Y
A Vizagapatam buffalo horn and sandalwood ink stand India, circa 1835
22 May 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£3,000 - £5,000
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Oliver White
Head of Department
A Vizagapatam buffalo horn and sandalwood ink stand
India, circa 1835
India, circa 1835
the base with a large drawer surmounted by a raised area with two recesses for glass inkwells, behind the raised area, recesses for two soapstone paperweights with horn tops, engraved and inlaid in silver with floral sprays, between a recess for pens, the back section surmounted by an ornate tempietto section with lifting floor decorated with ivory and horn tiles, the roof surmounted by turned horn finials, flanked by carved horn foliate letter racks, with horn feet and handles to each side
45 x 45 x 27 cm.
45 x 45 x 27 cm.
Footnotes
Provenance
Private UK collection.
At the end of the 17th Century, a cabinet-making industry emerged at Vizagapatam, a port on the Coromandel Coast, perfectly situated for the necessary raw materials in addition to local technical expertise. Initially renowned for ivory-inlaid work, the first half of the 19th Century saw an expansion in the range of materials used, including buffalo horn imported from Jeypore Zamindari, coinciding with a decrease in the quantity of ivory employed as demonstrated in this ink stand. A similar example of the use of buffalo horn on items from Vizagapatam is demonstrated by an envelope box in the Victoria & Albert Museum (see A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 213, cat. 60).
For a similar ink stand from Vizagapatam offered at Sotheby's see Property from the Collection of Sir Gawaine and Lady Baillie, 1 May 2013, lot 121.
The item within this lot containing ivory has been registered in accordance with the Ivory Act (Section 10), reference no. BCPFGF8E.