Geometrics in Indian Mosaic

 

QUESTION: Recently, as I was browsing the tables at a local garage sale, I came across a unique box covered with tiny bits of stone in intricate geometric patterns. I asked the homeowner if they knew anything about it, but she said she bought it several years ago at another yard sale. I decided to buy the box but I can’t find anything about it. What can you tell me about this box?

ANSWER: Your box is an example of a Sadeli Mosaic, a type of decoration of repeating geometric patterns on a variety of boxes, card cases, and chess boards produced in India since the 16th century. Becoming popular in the 19th century, it’s a type of micro mosaic. Since Bombay (now Mumbai) became a center of making them, they became known as Bombay boxes.

Archaeologists believe the ancient art of Sadeli Mosaic first appeared in Shiraz in Persia by way of Sind to Bombay, a long time before Indian boxes appeared. The designs on early boxes look deceptively simple. They emerged from a culture which had mastered geometry and understood how to generate a pattern from a set number of points. The patterns are so harmoniously combined that their incredible complexity isn’t immediately apparent to the viewer.

While the technique may at first seem exquisitely complex, it’s relatively simple. Nevertheless, it required a great deal of skill and patience.

The first step in creating a Sadeli mosaic was to prepare thin rods by scraping lengths of ivory, bone or wood into the desired shape, usually triangular. Artisans then glued these long thin rods together with animal glue, then sliced them transversely to form a repeat pattern. To get variety and contrast, they used woods like ebony and rosewood, along with natural and green-stained bone and ivory. Often they mixed in circular shaped rods of silver, pewter or tin. Finally, they glued the slices onto the surface of a wooden box, often made of sandalwood. Craftsmen then scraped the surface of the slices to level slight variations. To achieve variations of patterns, they combined the materials in different ways.

Persian and Indian makers of this exquisite decorative technique displayed an understanding of the qualities of the different materials they used. They combined substances, which could expand and contract according to atmospheric conditions with others which were hard and unyielding. The result was a sharp definition of the lines and patterns which made up the whole design.

Beginning in the early part of the 18th century, Indian artisans made what came to be known as Anglo-Indian boxes for the English residents living in India, who eventually brought or sent them back to England. At the beginning of the 19th century, India began exporting these boxes commercially, although not in any significant numbers until the 1850s. People valued them so highly that manufacturers of biscuit tins copied the designs on them in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Anglo-Indian boxes fall into four groups: Rosewood or ebony boxes inlaid with ivory; sandalwood boxes veneered in ivory, tortoiseshell, horn, quills or a combination of these materials; sandalwood boxes covered with Sadeli mosaic; and carved boxes often combined with Sadeli mosaic.

The first two categories came from Vizagapatam in East India while the last two came from Bombay in West India.

English traders discovered the rich woods and intricate workmanship of Indian artisans, so colonial government officials began to recognize the work of the Indian artists and craftsmen as a source for satisfying the need for furniture and boxes, which would both serve to enhance English households in India. This gave rise to the cabinetmaking workshops in Vizagapatam between Calcutta and Madras.

Craftsmen made the first boxes to be decorated with Sadeli Mosaic of rosewood or ebony with ivory, incised to give further definition to the decoration, directly inlaid into the wood. The shape of the early boxes was either sloping at the front with a flatter section at the back, reminiscent of English writing slopes, or rectangular. Artisans inlaid the borders with stylized floral scrolls and the centers with a single floral motif following a circular or oval symmetrical or asymmetrical pattern. The edging was of ivory pinned with ivory pins, or a combination of ivory and wood. Both ornamental and protective, both helped protect the end grain against the weather.

The style of the ornamentation on the early boxes was formal yet flowing and robust, a perfect compliment to the strength and grain of the rosewoods. The boxes often had silver escutcheons and drop handles. Indian artisans made this type of box up to the 1750s.

They also made ivory inlaid boxes in more conventional English shapes, such as writing, document, and jewelry boxes later in the 18th and 19th centuries. The designs by this time had moved on to covering more of the box in an integrated pattern or with a simple edge decoration with a small central motif.

In the early boxes, which date from the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, there are large panels of mosaic covering the tops and sides. It took incredible skill to cover such large areas without any wavering of the pattern. To further enhance the symmetry of these boxes, artisans impeccably matched the corners and where the sides joined the bottom.

To meet the demand, additional Indian workshops began making Sadeli Mosaic boxes in the latter part of the 19th century. The accuracy of execution and the sharpness of design suffered, however, although boxes from this period are pretty and easier to find.

The majority of the boxes found in the antiques market today are from the early to mid 19th century. By the 1820s, Indian craftsmen covered few boxes completely in Sadeli Mosaic, using it  more sparingly combined with other materials, mainly ivory. Latter sandalwood boxes, veneered in ivory, had circles, diamonds or bands of mosaic inserted as further decoration. 

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And All That Chintz

QUESTION: My grandmother left me quite a few beautiful pieces of china, decorated with floral patterns. What seems like the pattern name appears with the mark on the bottom of the pieces. Names like Summertime, Royalty, Florida, and such are common among them. Can you tell me anything about this china? I really like its bright, happy decoration and would like to collect more of it.

ANSWER: The pieces that you have, which are actually pottery not china, are known as chintz. Made from earthenware, they’ve become one of today’s most popular collectibles.

Chintz dates back to the 18th century when English merchants imported exotic fabrics with elaborate floral patterns from India. By the early 19th century, Staffordshire potteries began to emulate these patterns on the decorations of their wares, using large flowers and exotic birds. By the 1820s many potteries in the Staffordshire area manufactured chintz for everyday use. Although they produced many Victorian patterns, today's collectors prefer the chintz made from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The four major companies making chintz back then—Grimwades Royal Winton, James Kent, Crown Ducal, and Lord Nelson—needed a product that was cheap to produce so that their chief market, the English middle class, could afford it. Since they made chintz from earthenware and decorated it with lithograph transfers, it filled the need nicely. All together, there are over 200 different patterns of chintz.

The decoration of chintz required an amazing amount of handwork and skill since women transferred the designs by hand from lithographs on to the individual pieces. The process, which was similar to applying a  decal, required meticulous cutting and matching to ensure that the junctures of each piece were practically invisible. Other workers gilded each piece by hand before firing.

During the 1930s, the companies producing chintz, in ever-increasing competition, introduced fresh new patterns and shapes at the British Industries Fair. In order to come up with these new patterns, some  reversed the foreground and background colors. One of the leading manufacturers, Grimwades Royal Winton, changed their Welbeck with yellow background into Hazel with black ground and their Spring background into white. Companies often often named their patterns for the flowers in them and incorporated them into the backstamp or mark.

When World War II broke out, the British Government forbade all unnecessary manufacturing, so chintz production halted. After the war, people became starved for color and the chintz produced in the 1950s had a different look, with flowers larger and farther apart. Makers also changed background colors to  black, burgundy and navy.

But in the late 1950s tastes changed, and housewives’ preferences turned to modern Scandinavian design in furniture and accessories. The fussy chintz patterns clashed with the new decorating tastes, and most chintz production came to an end. It wasn't until the 1990s that interest in cozy, comfortable chintz returned.

Of all the chintz manufacturers, collectors deem Grimwades the “Cadillac of Chintz.” It produced over 60 different patterns from 1929 through the early 1960s.

In 1885 Leonard Grimwades founded the pottery with his brother at Winton Pottery, Stoke-on-Trent. They started production in a simple shed and expanded rapidly, taking over the Stoke Pottery in 1900. They introduced the first modern chintz pattern, called Marguerite, in 1928. In 1932, they came out with their Summertime pattern which immediately became immensely popular. Grimwades applied this pattern to many different articles, including clocks, invalid feeders, and jardinieres, and shipped large quantities of it to the U.S. The company awarded Wright, Tyndale and Van Roden Inc., a luxury store in Philadelphia, exclusive rights to Floral Feast, Somerset and Summertime. However, many of these pieces bear only the store’s stamp. The cup and saucer in your photo bears this pattern. Throughout its history, Grimwades produced nine chintz patterns, more than any other company.

In 1915, Albert Goodwin Richardson bought the Gordon Pottery in Tunistall, England and renamed it the A.G. Richardson Ltd. He wanted to produce good quality earthenware under the name Crown Ducal. In 1919 he sold his interest to Harry Taylor who owned a lithograph company. Crown Ducal wares also appealed to Americans during the late1920s through the 1950s.

Richardson developed a deep ivory glaze base color in 1931, and a number of chintz patterns employed it, including Pansy, Peony, Primrose, and Priscilla. In 1980, the Wedgewood Group purchased the  company and renamed it Unicorn Pottery.

James Kent took over the Old Foley Pottery at Longton. in 1897 and renamed it James Kent Ltd. to produce earthenware for the English middle class. He first produced the chintz pattern DuBarry in 1934, and it remained in production until 1980. The most popular Kent pattern is Hydrangea with a white background. The quality of James Kent wares is inferior to Grimwades, and prices are somewhat lower.  M.R. Hadida Fine Bone China Ltd. Bought the company in the 1980s.

Another factory turning out great quantities of chintz was Elijah Cotton's Lord Nelson ware. The firm Elijah Cotton Ltd. operated at the Nelson Pottery in Hanley from 1889, making mostly kitchen and hospital ware. Their chintz earthenware is chunky in shape and poorly decorated. To avoid having to hire skilled decorators, they purposely didn’t decorate the spouts and handles of their teapots and jugs. Black Beauty and Green Tulip are their most popular patterns.

Today’s collectors include tea and coffee pots, whole tea sets, bud vases, and serving pieces in their collections. Some focus their collections on a single pattern while others mix and match designs. Still others collect only tea cups in as many patterns as possible.