A RARE AND LARGE GILT-COPPER (TOMBAK) EWER AND BASIN

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The drop-shaped body with spiralling ribs, the flaring foot with openwork decoration, the splaying neck rising from a small ribbed ring, with domed ribbed lid, s-shaped handle and serpentine spout, the basin standing on a tall openwork foot, the bowl finely executed with spiralling ribs around an openwork ‘filter’ panel, the foot concealing a copper water container, the openwork decoration arranged in rows of paired palmettes and trefoils

Ewer 43cm. high; basin 25.5cm high, 34cm. diam.; ewer on basin 60 cm. high

Provenance: 

Mes Ader Picard Tajan, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 3 & 4 March 1986, lot 342 (‘Rare aiguière en “tumbaq” ciselée de côtes torses’ [..] ‘modèle inédit et d’une insigne rareté’)

Collection of Sadruddin Aga Khan (1972-2003), thence by inheritance to his wife Catherine Aga Khan until 2020

Published:

Mark Zebrowski, Gold, Silver & Bronze from Mughal India, London, 1997, cat 192, p.149

SOLD