A footed bowl Agate and gold India, possibly... Lot 425

A footed bowl Agate and gold India, possibly Gujarat, 17th century Later mounts This small smoked shades tinged agate cup has, as its main defining characteristic, the fact that it is a monolith, that is, it was carved out, cup and foot, of a single mineral block that remains united. Agates are one of the various types of chalcedony, a type of quartz that includes also carnelians and heliotropes. The identification of geographical origin for this type of pieces - carved out of a single mineral core and without decoration - is normally a rather difficult task. However, the chosen mineral type and its shape, suggest that this cup might originate from Gujarat, a north-western Indian Province. According to diaries of many travellers and traders that visited Gujarat in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was from that area that various objects originated, not only utilitarian but also of higher artistic intervention, carved out in various types of chalcedony. Amongst these can be found bowls, dagger and sword handles, seals, rings, etc. (1) Of the extremely rare dated pieces that have survived to date, stands out a small semi-hemispherical agate cup, inscribed with Quran verses and dated to 1606, presently at the Khalili Collection, London (2). A second bowl, equally in tinged agate and attributed to the second quarter of the 17th century, belongs to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (3). The pronounced cup of this bowl, sits on a small foot replicating the base of a truncated cone. The rim, outer curving and of straight lip, is thinner than its walls. Albeit both the cup and the foot being more pronounced, they approach the shapes of the jade chalice of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27), in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, with inscribed date corresponding to 1607-08 (4). A second bowl, at the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, in rock crystal but enriched with gold and precious stones does also present a similar sha