An exceptionally fine silver and gold-sheet dish, India, 18th century

of shallow rounded form with wide rim decorated with a repoussé band of scrolling lotus vines interpersed with birds and squirrels on a ring punched ground overlaid with gold-sheet, bordered by a narrow gold band the rim with foliate moulding

This elegant dish (thali) would have been used for serving sweetmeats or pandan. Records indicate that a large quantity of thalis were used within the Mughal court. ' A long line of servants carried the meal to the guests. Each guest was served with his own thali, or platter, made of gold or silver... guests were offered sweetmeats made from carrots, marrows, pistachios, pine nuts and rose petals that were covered in gold or silver edible foil.' (Patnaik, N., A Second Paradise: Indian Courtly Life: 1590-1947, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, p.43). 

A similar silver gilt dish dating from the second half of the seventeenth century is illustrated in Bordeaux 1998, p.115, no. 53. The stylisation of the lotus palmettes in both this dish and the current lot relate closely to floral forms seen on seventeenth and eighteenth-century painted cotton Palampores and Vizagapatam furniture (see Irwin and Brett 1970, and Jaffer 2001, p.182, no.35).  Made for the export market these trade goods display decorative schemes that are a synthesis of European and Indian influences.