A carved ivory plaque with lotus flowers, Sri Lanka, 17th century

the plaque mounted on original wood panel and carved in relief with a symmetrical design of flowering plant issuing from a leafy clump with a central quatrefoil and stems of lotus palmettes

David Knight, London, late 1970s/80s
Acquired in 1993

This boldly carved panel would originally have been part of a cabinet, possibly a drawer front, the hole in the centre of the quatrefoil indicating where a brass loop handle would originally have been attached. Such cabinets were made under Dutch patronage in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. Their design may have been influenced by the arrival of Dutch flower engravings in India at the time. The floral decoration relates closely to contemporary Coromandel chintzes which also drew inspiration from the same European engraved sources.

Seventeenth-century Sinhalese cabinets decorated with related ivory panels are to be found in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (see Bordeaux 1998, p.114, no.52), the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (see Jaffer 2002, pp.68-69, no.27) and the Brooklyn Museum, New York (see Pal 1981, p.74, no.63; and Brooklyn 1982, no.42). The Brooklyn cabinet would appear to be the closest comparison to the present piece.