Mid-16th Century Ming Period Porcelain Plate

This antique 16th-century bronze Thai Buddha statue is an exceptional example of sacred art from the Chiang Sean period, renowned for its refined proportions and serene spiritual pre...

Sharing this lovely and unusual Chinese porcelain incense burner from the late Ming period, Tianqi period most probably. Jingdezhen made for ...

Material: bronze 32,3 cm high 18,5 cm wide and 10,5 cm deep Weight: 2.833 kgs Bhumisparsha mudra Originating from Thailand 16th century With confirmed TL-test, see pictures A special Buddha...

Discover the beauty of this antique Indian wooden temple fragment, a remarkable 16th-17th century artifact showcasing traditional craftsmanship. Carved from solid wood, this exquisit...

Material: bronze 60 cm high 34,5 cm wide and 22,3 cm deep Weight: 12.4 kgs Bhumisparsha mudra Originating from Laos 16th century With inlaid eyes of mother-of-pearl Long nec...

An exceptional Indo-Portuguese colonial mother-of-pearl veneered casket with silver mounts India, Gujarat, 2nd half of the 16th century, the silver mounts Goa or probably Lisbon Measures: H. 16 x W. 24.6 x D. 16.1 cm An exceptional Gujarati casket with a rectangular box and truncated pyramidal lid (with slopes on each side and a flat top) made from exotic wood, probably teak (Tectona grandis), covered with a mother-of-pearl mosaic. The tesserae, cut from the shell of the green turban sea snail (Turbo marmoratus, a marine gastropod) in the shape of fish scales, are pinned to the wooden structure with silver ball-headed nails. The casket is set on bracket feet on the corners. The masterfully engraved decoration of the silver mounts follows the most refined and erudite Mannerist repertoire of rinceaux and ferroneries dating from the mid-16th century. The high quality and refinement of the silver mounts and, likewise, the silver nails that replaced the original brass pins used to hold the mother-of-pearl tesserae in place indicate the work of a silversmith probably working in Lisbon in the second half of the 16th century. The Indian origin of this production, namely from Cambay (Khambhat) and Surat in the present state of Gujarat in north India, is, as for the last three decades, consensual and fully demonstrated, not only by documentary and literary evidence - such as descriptions, travelogues and contemporary archival documentation - but also by the survival in situ of 16th-century wooden structures covered in mother-of-pearl tesserae. A fine example is a canopy decorating the tomb (dargah) of the Sufi saint, Sheik Salim Chisti (1478-1572) in Fatehpur Sikri in Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. This is an artistic production, geometric in character and Islamic in nature, where usually the mother-of-pearl tesserae form complex designs of fish scales or, similar to the dishes also made using the same technique, with the thin brass sheets and pins, stylized lotus flowers. The truncated pyramidal shape corresponds, like their contemporary tortoiseshell counterparts also made in Gujarat, to a piece of furniture used in the Indian subcontinent within the Islamic world prior to the arrival of the first Portuguese. This shape, in fact, is very old and peculiar to East-Asian caskets, chests or boxes used to contain and protect Buddhist texts, the sutras. A similar chest is the famous and large reliquary chest from Lisbon cathedral that once contained the relics of the city's patron saint, Saint Vincent. Both match in shape, having the same kind of socle or pedestal and bracket feet, and in their engraved silver mountings, featuring the same type of refined, erudite decoration. Their differences lie in the silver borders that frame the entire length of the edges of the chest (both the box and the lid), pinned with silver nails, and on the lock plate, shaped like a coat of arms in the Lisbon example. Given the exceptional dimensions of the reliquary casket...

Very special antique bronze Burmese Buddha statue Material : bronze 36,8 cm high 18 cm wide and 10,5 cm deep With traces of the original lacquer and 24 krt. gilding Ava style Bhumisp...

This porcelain wall plate is a decorative object manufactured in Japan at the end of the 19th century. This refined wall plate is completely ma...

Beautiful porcelain plate with imari decoration. On this plate, the background is blue and white, with reserves in which we can observe red flowers and bamboo leaves patterns. Imari ...

It is believed that pottery baked in southern China in the early Ming dynasty was imported into Japan. It is a small size. The upper part is slightly ...