Indian box in the shape of a fish

Alloy inlaid with silver metal (bidri), the body decorated with scales, the figurative head embellished with whiskers. India, probably lucknow or hyderabad, late nineteenth century. Although the metal inlay technique known as bidri was invented in the deccan in the seventeenth century and hyderabad remained a center for this type of metalworking until the 1800s, lucknow in northeastern india also became an important center of bidri production in india. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 23.5 cm long, 12cm wide and about 9 cm high. For a similar box, held at the metropolitan museum, see masterpieces from the metropolitan museum of art new york in the arts of islam, berlin, 1981. No. 132, pp. 308–9, ill. P.309 (inv. N°19.135.15 a and b).

Ref. : HAXP1SRA