Thank you for registering for our auction! You are required to provide: 1. Deposit amount is to be discussed; 保证金待商议; 2. Copy or images of ID card (front and back) or Passport 3. Images of Credit card (front and back).
An Indian Parcel-Gilt Four Poster Bed, Probably Rajasthan, India, second half 19th century, sheet silver overlaid on wood, with scalloped end-panels, profusely decorated in repousse relief with dense floral and figural designs, the head-board with oval mirror insert and crest flanked by a pair of peacocks, the slender tapered posts with spiralling vines, each surmounted with urn finials, 217 cm high x 213 cm long x 138 cm wideSpectacular silver furniture in a hybrid European-Indian style reached the height of popularity amongst the ruling families of India during the Victorian Raj. For another example, see Bonhams, The Contents of the St Lucian Property of Lord Glenconner, London, 28th September 2011, lot 73 (51,650 including premium)Beds in the Western sense did not exist in India before the arrival of the Europeans. The majority of people used little more than a cotton mat or carpet, or four-legged structure known as a charpoy, which was widely used across the social classes of Indian society. Although beds in the Western sense did not exist in India before the arrival of Europeans, the tradition of silver-sheet covered wood furniture was known throughout India for at least five hundred years. It became particularly popular in the Rajput courts under the East India Company and then British influence; often copying Western forms with various degrees of accuracy, and by the mid to late 19th Century had become very popular in the royal courts of Rajasthan. In some courts, silver and gold were used only for the seat of the ruler, but in others they were used on a variety of furnishings and objects for the royal family and high-ranking guests. As a guest of the Maharajah of Patiala in the 1930s, Rosita Forbes marvelled at being given a room with 'a bed plated with gold' (quoted in Jaffer, op. cit. 2001, p. 226).