Gujarati fall-front writing cabinet

This rare fall-front writing box, missing its original fall-front, was made in Gujarat for the Portuguese market in the second half of the sixteenth century. Made from teak (Tectona grandis), it is lavishly veneered in ebony (Dyospiros ebenum) and decorated with teak, ivory and green-dyed bone inlays.

Its gilt copper fittings include two heavy side handles, the lock plate of the central drawer in the shape of a double-headed eagle or gandabherunda - a Hindu mythological bird thought to possess magical strength and used to ward off evil and protect its precious contents - and the drawer pulls of the other drawers.[1]

Alongside table and dais cabinets, the present writing box is modelled after a European prototype which ranked among the most prestigious pieces of storage furniture in the sixteenth century. The hinged front would drop down to form a surface for writing, while the many drawers gave access to what was kept in its multiple compartments including writing implements. This type of furniture was prevalent in the interior furnishings of European noble and patrician households and portable pieces of furniture of this type were a basic requirement of European officials, merchants and traders living and travelling in Asia.

Objects of this type made in Asia with exotic and expensive materials such as ebony were much admired and avidly sought after in Europe due not only to their appealing design but also to their technical perfection. The production of this type of furniture was based in north-western India, namely in Gujarat.[2]

The decoration of the top and sides of this rare writing cabinet, as it is entirely veneered in ebony unlike the more common rosewood, features a central field of floral scrolls of Timurid (Persian) origin set in double symmetry.

This decoration of large stylized lotus flowers derived from Chinese art (textiles and ceramics) embellished with the rare use of metallic thread, is similar to the Gujarati production of precious furniture with mother-of-pearl inlays on a dark mastic background of the same period.

The “S”-shaped motifs with zoomorphic terminals on the border, used solely on the top of the cabinet, are rare in this Gujarati production, and something also found on the altar frontal converted into a table in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. IS.15 -1882) of this same production.

Another object from the same museum (inv. 18-1897) and from this production, a writing cabinet similarly missing its fall-front, features also a border with the same type of “S”-shaped motif on the top.

In contrast to the top and sides, the back of our writing cabinet has a central field featuring five flowering trees teeming with leaves flanked by four vultures that peck their chests depicting jatayuh, an apotropaic figure such as the double-headed eagle.

The writing cabinet is fitted with nine drawers in four tiers with a larger central square drawer. While the inlay decoration on the front of the smaller drawers consists of symmetrically arranged flowering plants and birds (including female peafowl), the front of the central drawer features a large flowering tree flanked by a couple in Islamic attire, underscoring the nuptial character of the present cabinet. On the left, the man wears jama (coat), pay-jama (tight-fitting pants), patka (waist sash) and kulahdar (small turban), and the woman, on the right, wears ghaghra (long pleated skirt), odhani (long veil) and choli (blouse).