BOMBAY (today Mumbai

Bombay

Glove box sandalwood inlaid with ivory and sadeli, Bombay, c.1867. cf, this reference sample from the V&A Museum, London.

A persistent feature of decorated wooden boxes from Bombay is the use of sadeli. This is a micro-mosaic feature introduced to Bombay from Shiraz in Persia where it has a history of many centuries. The technique is still practiced in Syria and Iran where it is more commonly known as Khatam Kari and has a slightly different visual appearance from the designs carried our in India. The first step in creating a Sadeli mosaic is preparing thin rods by scraping lengths of ivory, bone or wood into the desired shape, usually triangular. Artisans then glue these long thin rods together with animal glue, then slice 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 would glue the slices onto the surface of a wooden box. Craftsmen would then scrape the surface of the slices to level slight variations. The process can be seen on YouTube videos as it is still actively practiced today. In freshly prepared sadeli, the small mosaics are clearly defined but, with the passage of time, the metal elements oxidise and what was originally shiney turns black. The metal oxide is more voluminous than the original metal causing it to rise up above the original surface. The extent to which this happens provides an indications of the age of the piece.

The exterior of the box illustrated above is decorated with two sunbursts with alternating rays of wood and ivory inlaid with sadeli, a geometric micromosaic composed of various woods, metals and ivory. Decorative boxes of this type well widely made in western India, especially in and around Bombay, for which reason they were described under the blanket heading ‘Bombay boxes’. This box of wood has an exterior of parquetry of wood, ivory and Sadelia with ivory, the interior lined with sandalwood, with silver and brass lock and hinges. A box of similar design but with only a single starburst, was exhibited at the Universal exhibition, Paris in 1867 and so must have been made prior to that date.

The work spread to other centers in the Bombay Presidency and by the middle of the 19th century, an enterprising Parsee (Persian) introduced the work to Calcutta and sent some boxes to the 1851 London Great Exhibition. The Calcutta work consisted of sadeli patterns set into wood and ivory. From a dating perspective, boxes fitted with large panels of sadeli micromosaics tend to be earlier dating to the 18thC. Great skill was required not only to create the

small repeating elements but also to arrange them accurately at corners , a challenge well known to carpet weavers paying attention to the borders. The early 19thC reduced the use of sadeli elements to roundels, diamond shapes or running borders. Later boxes veneered in ivory (as seen in these examples), date to the second half of the 19thC as evidenced by the fact the the metal elements are less oxidised and present a fresher and crisper appearance.

Because contemporary records are so scarce, it is worth quoting Birdsworth at length given his excrutiatingly detailed comments on Bombay work in 1880.

“A good deal of ornamental furniture is also made in Bombay inlaid work so familiar now in the ubiquitous glove boxes, blotting cases, book stands, work boxes, desks, and card cases, which go by the name of "Bombay boxes." They are made in the variety of inlaid wood work, or marquetry or tarsia, called pique, and are not only pretty and pleasing, but interesting, on account of its having been found possible to trace [see my paper in the Journal of Bombay Astatic Society, vol. vii, 1861-63] tne introduction of the work into India from Persia, step by step, from Shiraz into Sindh, and to Bombay and Surat. In Bombay the inlay is made up of tin wire, sandal-wood, ebony, sappan [brazil] wood, ivory, white, and stained green, and stag's horn. Strips of these materials are bound together in rods, usually three-sided, sometimes round, and frequently obliquely four-sided, or rhombic. They are again so arranged in compound rods as when cut across to present a definite pattern, and in the mass have the appearance of rods of varying diameter and shape, or of very thin boards, the latter being intended for borderings.

The patterns commonly found in Bombay, finally prepared for use, are chakar-gul, or "round bloom ; " katki-gul, "hexagonal bloom ;" tinkonia-gul, "three-cornered bloom;" adhi-dhar-gul, "rhombus bloom;" chorus-gul, " square [matting-like] bloom ; " tiki, a small round pattern ; and gandirio, " plump," compounded of all the materials used ; also " one grain," having the appearance of a row of silver beads set in ebony ; and port lihurjafran marapech, jeri, baelniutana, sankru hajisio, and poro hansio, these eight last being bordering patterns. The work was introduced into Sindh from Shiraz, about 100 years ago, by three Multanis, Pershotum Hiralal, and the brothers Devidas and Valiram. A number of people acquired the art under them, and about seventy years ago it was introduced into Bombay by Manoredas, Nandlal, Lalchand, Thawardas, Rattan ji, Pranvalab, and Narrondas, who educated a number of Parsis and Surat men, by whom it was carried to Surat, Baroda, Ahmedabad, and elsewhere.

Fifty masters, all of whose names I have recorded and about 75 apprentices under them, were engaged in the work in Bombay in 1863, of whom Atmaram Vuliram and Parshostram Chilaram had been established in the Kalbadavi ward ever since its introduction sixty years before. One of the most intelligent craftsmen at present in the trade is Framji Hirjibhai. In Surat there are thirteen families of inlayers, of whom eight are Parsis and five Hindus.

Tin wire is used in Western India in the work instead of brass, as in Persia, where also it is always varnished. The same inlaid work is made in Egypt and Algiers, and it is similar to the tarsia or marquetry of Italy and Portugal, and the Roman work known as opus cerostrotum. It is also, I believe, identical with the inlaid work of Girgenti and Salerno, although in this the patterns are floral, and not geometrical, for I found by a comparison of the two varieties in Paris, that there was not a single geometrical pattern in the Bombay work which cannot be traced back to a flower in the work of Girgenti and Salerno.

The Egyptians also obviously worked in tarsia. The art is said to have died out of Europe, and to have been again reintroduced at Venice from the East. More probably it remained an unbroken tradition in the Mediterranean, and was revived by the Saracens. At Goa, rare old caskets, coffers, and other examples of it, of the same style as the Portuguese sixteenth and seventeenth century tarsia, and evidently the works of patient Hindu hands, are sometimes to be found by the insidious virtuoso, but otherwise there is not a trace of such articles, so far as I am aware, in India, except what has come during the last 120 years from Persia.”