This box with internal compartments and drawers was almost certainly designed to function as a portable desk. The hinged lid and sides are decorated with gilt-copper sheets and silver plaques fashioned in a classic "lattice-and-flower" variant of the flower style that became popular in Mughal decorative arts by about 1640. The pierced silver plaques were originally set against red silk that has now largely disintegrated. The overlay technique is familiar from the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Gujarati caskets that have wooden forms overlaid with small pieces of mother-of-pearl, but surviving examples in metal are exceedingly rare.

The surface is given texture by the raised lines of the geometric grid and the raised heads of the carefully placed silver nails, as well as by the voids left in the silver plaques. The grid of strap bands and squares is almost architectonic in the way it integrates surface and form. The box's flat top, recessed sides, and network of framing elements recall the profile and elevation of classic Mughal buildings, charactertized by flat roofs, overhanging cornices, raised plinths, and symmetrical columns and walls.