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A MUGHAL GOLD-INLAID AND GEM-SET JADE FLY-WHISK (CHAURI) HANDLE, LATE 17TH-EARLY 18TH CENTURY North India or Deccan. With a cylindrical pale green nephrite jade shaft around a metal core inlaid with gold linked hexagons below a band of ruby-inset leaf motifs, swelling to a bud-form terminal, and fitted with an upper cup formed from a separate piece of jade inlaid with a foliate lattice and decorated with gold and inset gems forming tendrils and flowers. Provenance: Christie's London, 12 October 2004, lot 164. A private collection in the United Kingdom, acquired from the above. A copy of the invoice from Christie’s London, dated 12 October 2004, and stating a purchase price of GBP 9,833 or approx. EUR 24,500 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies the lot. Condition: Old wear, traces of use, and minor manufacturing irregularities. The shaft with two old repairs. Small losses and minute touchups to inlays. Weight: 102.7 g Dimensions: Height 22.2 cm Fly-whisks do not appear frequently in texts of the period, but feature very prominently in portraits of Indian and particularly Mughal rulers. The main figure is frequently attended by one or more flywhisk bearers. Flywhisks thus became an indicator of rank, such that, by the mid-seventeenth century, small delicate flywhisks were carried by nobles as accoutrements appropriate to their position. A number of enthronement scenes in the Padshahnama show one of the senior courtiers standing behind the Emperor holding a flywhisk in addition to the two more prominent servants, each with larger examples who tend to flank the monarch. Even Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan's chosen successor, is shown on his own in a portrait now in the Khalili Collection, standing with a sword over the right shoulder and a flywhisk by his side. By the time of the Mughal Empire, the fly-whisk, or chauri, had left behind its functional role and had been established as an emblem of office, held above the head of a ruler at court and in royal portraiture. The role of holding the fly-whisk, the chauri bearer, had become an official court position. On coming to India, the British, both in the time of the East India Company and, subsequently, the British Empire, were frequently taken by these emblems of Mughal courtly life, affecting, to greater or lesser degrees, elements of these practices into their own daily lives. By the time Curzon came to India, the interest in such pieces tended to be more scholarly and even ethnographic though it is tempting to imagine that a viceroy might have thought it apt to possess such objects as the successors to Mughal rule. A century earlier, Clive of India, in effect, one of Curzon's predecessors, had owned three fly-whisks, all in banded agate. Lord Curzon, who served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, was energetically influential in the British attempts to preserve Mughal monuments, playing a significant role in the conservation program of several of them, notably the Taj Mahal and Humayun's tomb in Delhi. Amongst the many Mughal objects he collected was a fly-whisk that was later given to the Victoria & Albert Museum, accession number 255-1927. Both this and the present example would originally have been mounted with a yak's tail. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Christie’s New York, 19 June 2019, lot 359 Price: USD 50,000 or approx. EUR 53,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Description: A gold-inlaid and gem set jade flywhisk, North India, 1675-1725 Expert remark: Compare the closely related form, stone, and decoration with similar gold inlays and rubies. Note the size (29.8 cm). Auction result comparison: Type: Related Auction: Sotheby’s London, 6 April 2011, lot 358 Price: GBP 49,250 or approx. EUR 98,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Description: A Mughal jade fly-whisk from the collection of the Viceroy Curzon, Northern India, 17th-18th century Expert remark: Compare the closely related form.

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Jade