A ca.1560-1630 Thane Indo-Portuguese teakwood (Tectona grandis ) made writing box, veneered in thick ebony (Dyospirus ebenum ), and of ivory and ebony marquetry decoration.

Raised on turned ball feet, this rare writing box is decorated on all its surfaces, except the underside, with a carpet-like chequered pattern composition alternating ivory triangles of ebony pegs with ebony triangles of ivory pegs. Its pierced openwork gilt copper fittings include corner brackets, a lock plate, two button-shaped drawer pulls, and two cast side handles.

Of box construction, it features a single drawer of open nook to the front, an open nook for quills and other writing paraphernalia to the right-hand side and two other smaller compartments for inkwell and pounce pot; all these elements are positioned at half height, as the drawer has built-in lower secret compartments. The sides of the main drawer give access, on both sides, to two long hidden drawers sliding in opposite directions, each with its own lock and ebony framed fronts. These drawers in turn, when removed, do also expose two smaller drawers.

This type of writing boxes, produced in exotic and robust woods of highly decorative effect and modelled after sixteenth and seventeenth-century European prototypes that are now very rare, were made for exporting in the various furniture producing centres in Portuguese India, such as Goa, Kochi and other settlements along the West Indian coast.

Given that sixteenth-century Portuguese written records mention the village of Taná or Thane - then part of the Northern Province of the Portuguese State of India[1] and nowadays absorbed by the sprawling city of Mumbai (Bombay) - as a flourishing community of Muslim craftsmen renowned for their production of precious marquetry furniture, it is likely that this writing box is an extant example of such manufacture.

The herewith described cabinet belongs to an exceptional group of rare, early furniture produced for the Portuguese market, which was only recently identified regarding its geographical origin, decorative inspiration and historical production context.[2]

Another Goan writing box of identical shape (17.4 x 44.0 x 36.6 cm), but of scrollwork decoration, belongs to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon (inv. 1670 Mov).[3]

Hugo Miguel

[1] On Portuguese-ruled Thane, see Sidh Losa Mendiratta, “Two Towns and a Villa. Baçaim, Chaul and Taná: The Defensive Structure of Three Indo-Portuguese Settlements in Northern Province of the Estado da Índia”, in Yogesh Sharma, Pius Malenkandathil (eds.), Medieval Cities in India, New Delhi, Primus Books, 2014, pp. 805-814.

[2] Hugo Miguel Crespo, Choices, Lisbon, AR-PAB, 2016, pp. 136-171, cat. 15; and Hugo Miguel Crespo, India in Portugal. A Time of Artistic Confluence (cat.), Porto, Bluebook, 2021, pp. 88-105.

[3] Published in Anísio Franco, “A Circulação de Modelos na Criação do Barroco Português”, in Anísio Franco et al. (eds.), Josefa de Óbidos e a Invenção do Barroco Português (cat.), Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, 2015, pp. 112-122, ref. p. 118, cat. 41.