A MUGHAL OR RAJPUT PARCEL-GILT SILVER HOLI WATER PUMP, NORTH INDIA, 18TH-19TH CENTURY

The elongated cylindrical form with stylised petal-shaped mounts and elephant-head terminal with a narrow spout protruding from its mouth, the plunger handle of swollen cylindrical form everted at either end

Sahibs, Memsahibs and Maharajas: Indian Art Under British Rule 1765-1880, Harvard Art Museums, 1989

In reasonably good overall condition, shaft with some old repair and resoldering, various knocks, scratches and minor dents associated with age throughout, vestiges of gilding around the elephant-form nozzle and base of shaft, as viewed.
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The pump was for use during the Hindu festival of Holi. The festival is a celebration of good over evil and of devotion. It has acquired associations with Krishna who was said to have played with colours on Radha. The festival involves the spraying of coloured water over each other in a good-humoured atmosphere, one in which, though a Hindu practice, Muslims also partook.

Lot 110 in this sale shows a depiction of Holi of, circa 1760-1764, in which a ruler and his courtiers use very similar pumps to the present example to spray each other.