A Four-Plate Cuirass (Chahar Ayina) from the Warwick Castle Collection, North India, 18th Century
Auction Closed
April 29, 12:32 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
consisting of four convex steel plates, each decorated in the same fashion with a field of neatly arranged chiselled irises surrounded by a gold overlaid border replicating the iris motif, the front and back plate with six clasps, the side plates with four clasps, the reverse of each plate padded and lined with contemporary silver-thread silk embroidered with a repeating pattern of polychrome silk flowers, with Warwick Castle inventory tags
29.2cm. max. height
Warwick Castle Collection
Philippe Missillier Collection no.24C
This four-plate cuirass, or chahar ayina (‘four mirrors’), is part of a small group of eighteenth-century pieces of armour from North India characterised by a field of neatly arranged and elegant chiselled irises across the field. Other armour pieces within this group include two nearly identical helmets in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. nos.OA1832 and OA1457), two vambraces in the same collection (inv. nos.OA1460 and OA1462), and another two vambraces in the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, Jaipur (inv. nos.MJM13.1111 and MJM13.1112, Robert Elgood, Arms & Armour: The Royal Collection at the Jaipur City Palace, New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2015, pp.188-9).
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