362

A RARE PERSIAN QAJAR COVERED RED LACQUER SCALE BOX

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Coins: Ancient Start Price:750.00 USD Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,000.00 USD
A RARE PERSIAN QAJAR COVERED RED LACQUER SCALE BOX
Very Rare Persian Qajar covered Red Lacquer Scale box, hinged covered red lacquer box with a removable front panel; tray under
cover. Persia (Iran) Circa 18th/19th Century. This rare boxed set of scale was made for use by a goldsmith in Persia around the
middle of the nineteenth century. The box is wooden and painted inside and out with typically Persian scenes of birds and flowers of
the period. The top of the hinged cover also has a border painted with nasta’liq script (with some early retouching.)The set includes
six graduated hexagonal brass weights, each decorated to the top with flower motifs; a pair of steel tweezers (with half of one tong
missing); and a pair of scales suspended from a red and yellow silk cord. The bars of the scales are of steel and the concave pans
are of brass, the interiors of which are engraved with flower motifs.Tool boxes decorated with lacquer painting were made in Persia
from at least the eighteenth century (Savage-Smith, 1997, p. 402). Boxes such as these were made for merchants who traded in
jewellery or small quantities of gold.A related boxed set of weights and scales – possibly by the same maker whose name is given as
Mirza Baba – is in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and illustrated in Savage-Smith, 1997, p.
404.ReferencesSavage-Smith, E., The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art: Science, Tools & Magic, Part Two: Mundane
Worlds, The Nour Foundation, 1997.