Chinoiserie Cigar Boxes and Humidors

Vintage Asian Silver Metal Hand-Carved Sitar Veena Box. Elevate your decor with this stunning vintage box, featuring intricate hand-carved designs of a sitar and peacock. The ornate ...

This finely hand-carved Malachite box celebrates the timeless beauty of one of the world’s most admired ornamental stones. The surface reveals dramatic banding in rich hues that shif...

This is a remarkable 19th century, Japanese lacquered sewing box with multiple compartments on the interior. The exterior is decorated in elaborate black and gilded motifs including...

Antique Chinese Tibetan Brass Filigree with Turquoise and Coral beads round Box Handcrafted round Tibetan, Nepalese decorative brass trinket wish box. Antique Asian Tibetan hand made box inlaid with polished turquoise and coral glass inlay pieces. Great fine brass filigree design on the top lid and sides. Has a wonderful patina. In good shape with age appropriate wear this box has retained its original patina finish, has no missing pieces. Opens and closes as it should. A beautiful Asian pill box for a vanity or desk. Box measures: 2" height X 4" diameter. Tibetan Buddhist prayer boxes...

Fully Partitioned Jewellery Tray From our Jewellery Boxes collection, we are delighted to offer this Rosewood Inlaid Jewellery Box. The Jewellery Box of slim rectangular form venee...

An early 20th century bird's-eye maple collectors box, circa 1920. Complete with recessed silvered handles and corners which gives it a military Campaig...

Gold Maki-e decorated Jubako (stacking box), Japan, early 20th century. The background urishi lacquer over wood. Natural scenes with a few figures; tea scene on top surface under a f...

A scarce fine quality antique silver-inlaid solid brass betel nut box (Lutuan), dating to the second half of the 19th / early 20th century, hand-crafted in Mindanao, Philippines. Boxes such as this were used to store the areca nut (also known as the betel nut) which would be wrapped in a betel leaf with lime paste and other ingredients, often tobacco, for chewing. Similar to the European tea caddy, these boxes often served as a way to impress while showing off ones wealth. Betel chewing was prevalent in the southern Philippines as in much of the rest of Southeast Asia. Wealthier Maranao families on Mindanao were able to afford elaborate silver-inlaid brass betel boxes such as this example. Such boxes were used to show off to guests and from which they were offered betel and the other component such as leaves and lime to make up the betel quid. Rare large size, most extant examples of such boxes tend to measure around 5 inches in length. At slightly more than 7.75 inches the example here is larger than most. The distinctive decorative box features a very heavy strong-box like rectangular shaped chest form with canted corners, copper handles, and a conforming hinged lid, lifting open to reveal an interior divided into three compartments covered by four hinged lids. Each of these doors is inlaid with silver in stylized orchid flower patterns. Exceptionally executed throughout, the arabesque silver inlaid exterior is decorated to the top with a large orchid motif within scrolling obid-obid (stylized rope) borders. The front, back and sides are inlaid with sets of stylized tail feathers of the sari-manok bird beneath which are unusual, highly stylized whimsical zoomorphic faces that appear like cat or tiger faces. (Such stylisation is accounted for by Southeast Asian Islamic preferences to avoid the overt and this potentially idolatrous representation of animal and human forms. Designs such as these are drawn from a local design repertoire that has its origins in wood carving. Although the spread of Islam in the Philippines began in the 14th century, mostly through the influence of Muslim merchants from the western Malay Archipelago, decorative arts in this design remain exceptionally rare. This lutuan represents a fine example of Islamic metalwork from the most eastern outreach of Islamic art and civilisation: Mindanao island being significantly further east than even China – artwork from Islamic Southeast Asia remains chronically under-represented in the world’s major collections of Islamic art. PROVENANCE / ACQUISITION Acquired from highly reputable auction house, Austin Auction Gallery, established 1983, Austin, Texas. References Brownrigg, H., Betel Cutters...

An early 20th century walnut cigar Humidor, circa 1900 with sterling silver corners and nameplate. This piece has a campaign feel the corners are perfectly moulded. The walls of the ...

Pewter rectangular box realized in the early 20th century. Dimensions : H 2.7 x L 10 x P 12.4 cm. Very good condition.

A scarce antique circa 1900 South Asian hand carved wooden decorative table box / jewel casket. Hand-crafted in the early 20th century, likely British Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka)...

An superb and elegant Vintage Karelian Birch humidor with fitted interior by the renowned manufacturer Savinelli, retailed by the legendary retailer Harrods, mid 20th century in date...