Fine ivory-inlaid furniture and related objects, such as this box, represented an active export market from Mughal India to Europe from the late sixteenth century onward. The production and trade of such furniture from the western coast of India was first related to demand in the Ottoman and Persian worlds, largely for mother-of-pearl and ivory settings in lac, and later was superseded in Europe by a market for inlay in hardwoods.

While many Europeanizing elements are evident in the decoration of the box, the idiom of a forest hunting scene is essentially a Mughal one. Such depictions of the chase found their ultimate inspiration in Persian compositions and later became a popular genre in Mughal painting. This box is related to a small but distinguished group of ivory-inlaid furniture—possibly produced in the same workshop—that includes a cabinet in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, and a table cabinet in the Cincinnati Art Museum. The undulating branches of the bird-filled trees, against which lively figures of Portuguese hunters and animals have been set, make the box one of the most expressive and lyrical pieces of its type.