Unknown
Bowlcirca 1625-1650

Not on view

No image

Artist or Maker: Unknown
Title: Bowl
Culture: Mughal
Place Made: India, Gujarat, Khambhat (Cambay)
Date Made: circa 1625-1650
Medium: Faceted agate, copper rim with mercury gilding
Dimensions: Height: 3 in. (7.62 cm) Diameter: 5 in. (12.7 cm)
Credit Line: From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase
Accession Number: M.76.2.6
Classification: Furnishings
Collecting Area: South and Southeast Asian Art
Curatorial Notes: This elegant six-lobed bowl is fashioned from pale rose-colored agate. The bowl is supported by a plain circular foot and is unadorned except for a gilded copper rim. The lobed form of the bowl was likely inspired by long established Chinese and Middle Eastern vessel traditions, principally in ceramic or metalware.

Agate decorative objects required a labor-intensive method of production. The variegated mineral, a type of quartz, was cut or sawed into an appropriately sized block with a bow or string saw and an applied abrasive slurry (wet solution) containing particles of diamond, emery, or corundum. The rough blocks were shaped and polished into the required decorative form using the traditional South Asian method of a bow-powered lathe with rotating spindles fitted with various grinding plates for shaping and polishing, cutting wheels for carving designs, and diamond-tipped metal bores for drilling holes, all of which were augmented by abrasive slurries. Raw agate was often enhanced visually by sun-baking or fire-roasting it in shallow trenches, which intensified and deepened its natural hues.

Agate was used to make or decorate sumptuous drinking and dining vessels, weapon hilts, and a wide range of palatial accoutrements. It was also often inlaid for dramatic effect into the pristine surface of white marble Mughal monuments, such as the Taj Mahal (1632-43). Produced and traded principally in the coastal city of Cambay (present-day Khambhat) in Gujarat in western India, agate luxury items have been made there continuously since at least the time of the Romans, but their heyday was in the 16th and early 17th centuries when there was considerable demand for agate objects as export ware for the international maritime market with Portugal and the Middle East.
Selected Bibliography: Rosenfield, John. The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
Pal, Pratapaditya, Janice Leoshko, Joseph M. Dye, III, Stephen Markel. Romance of the Taj Mahal. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.

Related Unframed

Unknown
Bowlcirca 1625-1650

Not on view

No image

Artist or Maker: Unknown
Title: Bowl
Culture: Mughal
Place Made: India, Gujarat, Khambhat (Cambay)
Date Made: circa 1625-1650
Medium: Faceted agate, copper rim with mercury gilding
Dimensions: Height: 3 in. (7.62 cm) Diameter: 5 in. (12.7 cm)
Credit Line: From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase
Accession Number: M.76.2.6
Classification: Furnishings
Collecting Area: South and Southeast Asian Art
Curatorial Notes: This elegant six-lobed bowl is fashioned from pale rose-colored agate. The bowl is supported by a plain circular foot and is unadorned except for a gilded copper rim. The lobed form of the bowl was likely inspired by long established Chinese and Middle Eastern vessel traditions, principally in ceramic or metalware.

Agate decorative objects required a labor-intensive method of production. The variegated mineral, a type of quartz, was cut or sawed into an appropriately sized block with a bow or string saw and an applied abrasive slurry (wet solution) containing particles of diamond, emery, or corundum. The rough blocks were shaped and polished into the required decorative form using the traditional South Asian method of a bow-powered lathe with rotating spindles fitted with various grinding plates for shaping and polishing, cutting wheels for carving designs, and diamond-tipped metal bores for drilling holes, all of which were augmented by abrasive slurries. Raw agate was often enhanced visually by sun-baking or fire-roasting it in shallow trenches, which intensified and deepened its natural hues.

Agate was used to make or decorate sumptuous drinking and dining vessels, weapon hilts, and a wide range of palatial accoutrements. It was also often inlaid for dramatic effect into the pristine surface of white marble Mughal monuments, such as the Taj Mahal (1632-43). Produced and traded principally in the coastal city of Cambay (present-day Khambhat) in Gujarat in western India, agate luxury items have been made there continuously since at least the time of the Romans, but their heyday was in the 16th and early 17th centuries when there was considerable demand for agate objects as export ware for the international maritime market with Portugal and the Middle East.
Selected Bibliography: Rosenfield, John. The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
Pal, Pratapaditya, Janice Leoshko, Joseph M. Dye, III, Stephen Markel. Romance of the Taj Mahal. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.