The Guennol Lotus Jar: An important and early Mughal carved green nephrite jade jar, India, circa 1600

Spink & Son, London, 1978

Ex-collection Alastair Bradley Martin and Edith Martin, thence by descent

On loan to the Brooklyn Museum, New York (1979-2024), acc.no.L79.19.

Akbar's India: Art from the Mughal City of Victory, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, 10 October 1985 - 5 January 1986; Arthur M. Sackler Museum (Harvard University Art Museums), Cambridge, Massachusetts, 24 January - 16 March 1986; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 19 April - 15 June 1986

Arts of Asia and the Middle East reinstallation, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 15 September 2017 - 1 January 2015 (the Guennol Lotus Jar on view until 2024)

Amy G. Poster, 'Nephrite Lotus-form Jar' in The Guennol Collection: Vol II., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982, pp.68-70

Michael Brand & Glenn D. Lowry, Akbar's India: Art from the Mughal City of Victory, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, 1985, no.75, p.116 (illus.), 155

Jade has been mentioned in the Islamic world as early as the eighth century and traditionally associated with curing digestive ailments. It is noted in early sources as coming from Khotan in the region along the Silk Road forming present-day Northwest China (R. Pinder-Wilson in Markel 1992, p.35). The polymath Al-Biruni (972-1048 AD) wrote extensively on jade in his treaty on precious stones for the Ghaznavid Sultan Mawdud (d.1050 AD). It is recorded in the Akbarnama of Abu'l-Fazl that the Central Asian jade merchant Khwaja Mu’in visited the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1563 (Markel 1992, p.52). Another account from 1609 by an English merchant, William Hawkins, reported that the Mughal royal treasury at Agra contained “some twenty-five kilograms of uncut jade and five hundred drinking cups, that included fifty elaborate ones made of a single piece of jade or other precious minerals” (ibid.).  

Jade vessels were considered amongst the most prized possessions of the Mughals. This small dark green green jade jar was first attributed to Mughal India by Amy Poster in an article published in 1982. Although it lacks an inscription or a date, the simplicity of its form and elegant decoration places it in the early Mughal period, during the reign of Akbar (1556-1605). It was probably made in the late sixteenth century or very early in the seventeenth century, making it one of the earliest known jade objects from the Mughal era. Very few jade objects survive from the Akbar period. There is a plain dark green nephrite jade salver in the Cleveland Museum of Art (76.73), and a similar, smaller jade plate in the National Museum, New Delhi (58.14/43), both dated to circa 1575-1600 (see Markel 1992, pp.49-50, figs.1-2). An unusually large carved jade terrapin dated to circa 1600 is in the British Museum, London (1830,0612.1). Another cup of similar form, carved with a band of naturalistic lotus petals, from the reign of Jahangir (1605-27) is in the Bharat Kala Bhawan, Benaras (Poster 1982, p.69). A slightly later dark green nephrite jade inkpot with a gold lid, of comparable form albeit more rounded, dated circa 1618-19, inscribed with the names of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir and the maker (Mu’min Jahangir) and decorated with cloud forms and floral sprays within cartouches, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.145.2).

The prototypes for most Mughal jade objects, especially vessels, were earlier Timurid period jades and metalwork which had been brought to India during the second half of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century. One of the most important examples is an exceptional white nephrite jade jug produced in Samarkand, dated to the second quarter of the fifteenth century, which bears the name and title of Ulugh Beg, the son of Shahrukh and the grandson of Timur. The curved handle in the form of a dragon reveals the influence of Chinese art. The low, rounded body and short foot of the jug are comparable to the form of the present lot. The jug entered the Mughal treasury during the reign of Jahangir in 1613 and is further inscribed with the names and titles of Jahangir and Shah Jahan. It is now in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (inv.328).

The present jade jar may have been used as a drinking vessel but it is also possible that it was made to be used as an ink pot or other vessel. Amy Poster has pointed out that it relates closely to a pot of similar form with a pen in a painting titled ‘A Scholar with his Pupils’, circa 1570-80, formerly in the collection of Edwin Binney 3^rd (Brand & Lowry 1985, no.67, illus. p.103). Another comparable gilded inkpot can be seen beside a seated scribe in ‘Mercury in Gemini’, an illustrated folio from the Kitab-i Saat dated to circa 1583. (ibid., no.56, illus.p.85)

The Guennol jade jar belongs to the renowned collection of Edith and Alastair Bradley Martin formed over several decades. The collection acquired its name – Guennol – after the Welsh term for ‘Martin’. The ‘Guennol Lioness’, an impressive and highly important limestone figure from Mesopotamia, dated to circa 3000–2800 BC, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 5 December 2007, lot 30. For a ritual copper anthropomorphic figure from Northern India, dated 1500–1000 BC, also from the Guennol Collection, see Sotheby’s, New York, 21 March 2024, lot 801.