According to its inscription prominently embossed as a running border around the lid, this ornate casket commemorates the visit of Sir A. E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, to the Tanjore (Thanjavur) Temple on August 15, 1898. Col. Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock GCSI GCMG GCIE (1844-1908) was a long-time administrator in the English East India Company. He served as the Governor or chief bureaucrat for various posts in the West Indies, Africa, and South Asia, including Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 1890-1895, and Madras (Chennai), 1896-1900. Sir Havelock visited the temple as part of an official tour of the Tanjore environs.
In addition to its historical significance, the casket is also remarkable for its birds-eye view of the early eleventh-century great temple complex at Tanjore. The conceptual view represented on the lid closely depicts the main shrines in the complex, including (from left to right) the Subrahmanya Temple (upper corner); an unidentified temple (lower corner); Brihadeshvara (a.k.a. Rajarajeshvara) Temple, c. 1003-10; Chandeshvara Shrine, c. 1018 or earlier; Dipa-Stambha (light column); Nandi Pavilion; and the inner gopuram or gateway. Images of the Hindu avatars are portrayed on the casket’s side panels.
Tanjore has for centuries been one of the most important cultural centers in south India. The former capital of several dynasties, it is the home of magnificent religious architecture, refined painting, and sophisticated metalworking. This exquisite casket epitomizes the opulence and technical skill of Tanjore metalware at its finest. Its contrasting repoussé silver and copper are the hallmark of an indigenous two-tone aesthetic genre known as Ganga-Jumna ware, which features the use of two metals of contrasting colors. The name for this idiosyncratic metalware derives from the two major rivers of north India, the Ganges (Ganga) and the Yamuna (Jumna), whose waters merge at Allahabad near Benares (Varanasi), where this two-toned metalware was originally produced.