Filigree Casket with Sliding Top

Two filigree caskets: MMA (2014.253) and Hispanic Society of America, New York (LR 2321/1)

From at least the late sixteenth century, the so-called Golden Goa was a major center for the introduction, production, and trade of precious objects and rarities, including new animals and plants, styles of music, European engravings, fine furniture, gemstones, and goldworking. Many imported goods were presented as diplomatic gifts to the Mughal and Deccani courts, while others stimulated the local production of new designs to suit Portuguese taste. Fine objects were regularly made for the palaces, churches, and forts of the viceroys. For example, the Fortaleza Palace in Goa was refurbished with new textiles and carved and inlaid wood furniture for every viceroy, and the old furnishings were sent off to Lisbon.[1] Precious objects, such as embellished boxes and jewels, thus moved easily between courtly worlds and farther-flung centers. Deccani craftsmen were exposed to objects through trade, and documentary evidence indicates exchange among craftsmen in Portugal and India. Raul Xamtin, son of a famous Goan jeweler, was recorded to have enjoyed a long stay in Lisbon during the reign of Manuel I (1495–1521).[2]

In Goa, advances in techniques were made in gold- and silverwork, notably in objects with gold filigree, in both open and closed styles. One spectacular filigree casket from Goa was commissioned by Viceroy Matias de Albuquerque around 1597, while a group of silver-filigree objects in Saint Petersburg show the same technique still in use in the mid-seventeenth century.[3]

The technique of filigree involves drawing wires through a series of holes in a steel plate, which gradually diminish in diameter. The use of wire lengths of differing thickness and the alternation of plain wires with twisted ones enable craftsmen to vary the designs of scrolling palmettes and buti or buta (flame or feather) motifs.[4] This art form was transmitted to craftsmen across the Deccan, and filigree came to be made in such centers as Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh and Cuttack in Orissa, as well as Goa, where these two caskets were likely produced.[5] Filigree objects produced in India were held in the same esteem as examples produced in Europe.[6]

The filigree technique seen on these boxes also spread throughout Europe and across the globe, with similar high-quality pieces produced in Italy, Spain, China, Malta, South America, Persia, and other centers.[7] Filigree became especially popular in England toward the end of the seventeenth century, following the marriage of Charles II (reigned 1660–85) to the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza in 1662. As part of her dowry, Catherine brought many precious objects from India to England, including caskets such as these, and jewelry made of silver and gilt-silver filigree.[8] These objects undoubtedly influenced the English production of filigree.[9]
Navina Najat Haidar and Courtney Stewart in (Haidar and Sardar 2015)



Footnotes:

1- Dias, Pedro, "The Palace of the Viceroys in Goa." In Goa and the Great Mughal, edited by Jorge Flores and Nuno Vassallo e Silva, pp. 68–97, 204–6. Exh. cat. Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon. London: Scala. 2004, p. 68.

2- Mughal Silver Magnificence (XVI–XIXth C.)/Magnificence de l’argenterie moghole (XVIeme–XIXeme s.) Exh. cat. Brussels: Antalga, 1987, p. 153, no. 227.

3- Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Exh. cat. edited by Jay A. Levenson. With contributions by Diogo R. Curto and Jack Turner. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution2007, pp. 260, 264, 265, nos. I-28, I-32, I-33.

4- Mughal Silver Magnificence (XVI–XIXth C.)/Magnificence de l’argenterie moghole (XVIeme–XIXeme s.) Exh. cat. Brussels: Antalga, 1987, p. 101, nos. 127, 128.

5- Zebrowski, Mark, Gold, Silver & Bronze from Mughal India. London: Alexandria Press, in association with Laurence King. 1997, p. 49.

6- George Birdwood, quoted in Watt, George, Indian Art at Delhi, 1903: Being the Official Catalogue of the Delhi Exhibition, 1902–1903. Exh. cat. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, 1903, pp. 37–38: "The silver filigrain work, in which the people of Cuttack in Orissa have attained such surprising skill and delicacy, is identical in character with that of Arabia, Malta, Genoa, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and with the filigrain work of ancient Greece, Byzantium and Etruria."

7- A comparable casket with elements similar to both the Metropolitan Museum and the Hispanic Society caskets is attributed to Venice; see Art of Filigree, Iskusstvo skani / The Art of Filigree. With an essay by, M. M. Postnikova-Loseva. Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi, Istoricheskii Muzei, 1990, n.p. (collection of the Order of Lenin State History Museum [now the State Historical Museum], Moscow). For a comparable casket made in China, see Silver Wonders from the East: Filigree of the Tsars., Exh. cat. Zwolle: Waanders; Amsterdam: Hermitage Amsterdam, 2006, pp. 44, 102, no. 1. A filigree casket with very similar shape and feet to the example in the Hispanic Society (cat. 185) is in the collection of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon (384); Mughal Silver Magnificence 1987, p. 153, no. 227. Another is in the collection of Pádua Ramos, Matosinhos; Nuno Vassallo e Silva in Heritage of Rauluchantim, A heranca de Rauluchantim / The Heritage of, Rauluchantim. Exh. cat. edited by Nuno Vassallo e Silva., Lisbon: Museu de Sao Roque, 1996, p. 214, no. 27.

8- Mughal Silver Magnificence, Mughal Silver Magnificence (XVI–XIXth C.)/Magnificence de l’argenterie moghole (XVIeme–XIXeme s.) Exh. cat. Brussels: Antalga, 1987, p. 152, no. 225.

9- For comparable seventeenth-century English filigree examples, see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1974.28.157, .158); Impey, Oliver R., The Cecil Family Collects Four Centuries of Decorative, Arts from Burghley House. Exh. cat. Cincinnati Art, Museum and other institutions; 1998–2000, Alexandria, Va.: Art Services International. 1998, pp. 119, 120, nos. 34a, b, 35a, b.

Private Collection, The Netherlands; [ Alexis Renard, Paris, until 2014; sold to MMA]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy," April 20–July 26, 2015, no. 184.

Haidar, Navina, and Marika Sardar. "Opulence and Fantasy." In Sultans of Deccan India 1500–1700. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. no. 184, p. 313, ill. (color).