This writing box, made from teak (Tectona grandis), veneered inebony (Diospyros ebenum), and decorated with inlays of East Indianrosewood (Dalbergia latifolia), sandalwood (Santalum album), elephantivory, and green-dyed bone, was likely made in Thane in thesecond half of the sixteenth century, then part of the NorthernProvince of the Portuguese State of India.Of box construction, with a sliding top cover, this writingbox has a single drawer at the front and, when uncovered, revealstwo large open compartments at the front, and four at the back,one lidded to hold the inkwell.Its pierced openwork gilt-copper fittings include cornerbrackets, a rosette-shaped lock plate, and a central spiralled drawerpull. Elevated on similarly fire-gilt copper ball feet, this rare writingbox is intricately decorated on all sides, except for the underside,following a carpet-like composition.The top, with a more complex design, boasts a fine border ofsix-petalled rosettes alternating in ivory and rosewood, and a placed-r of floral scrolls, with serrated leaves and flowers, with double-headedeagles or gandabherunda—a Hindu mythological bird imbued withmagical strength used to ward off evil and protect the precious objectsstored inside the box placed—placed at the corners. The centralfield, also framed by a similar narrow border with alternating rosettes,prominently features an oval medallion with a narrow-pearled frieze encircling the heraldic arms of an ecclesiastic surmounted by a blackclerical hat with three tassels on each side. The shield, divided in two,shows, on the left, a banner topped by a cross surrounded by starsand, on the right, four bars. The central medallion is surroundedby opposing flowering plants. While the sides and back show floralscrolls emerging from vases, the front lacks a vase.In ecclesiastical heraldry, a black hat with three tassels oneach side, for a total of six, is generally associated with canons.Because heraldry of this period is highly individual and less strictlycodified than later personal heraldry, it is difficult, if not impossible,to identify the individual who used these arms and likelycommissioned this writing box.This type of writing box, modelled after sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European prototypes that are now very rare, wasproduced for export in exotic, durable woods of great decorativeeffect, in the various furniture-producing centres of PortugueseIndia, such as Goa, Cochin, and other locations along the westcoast of India. Given that sixteenth-century Portuguese recordsmention the village of Taná or Thane, today part of the city ofMumbai (Bombay), where a large community of Muslim craftsmenflourished, as a centre for precious marquetry furniture, it is likelythat the centre of production of this writing box was Thane, thenpart of the Northern Province of the Portuguese State of India.1
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 NorthernProvince of the Estado da Índia’, in Sharma, Yogesh, Malenkandathil, Pius (eds.), Medieval Cities in India, New Delhi, Primus Books, 2014, pp. 805–814.