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Craft

Silver splendour

Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj, Vidya Dehejia and others, Mapin Publishing, Rs. 2750.

Last year, a prestigious exhibition was mounted at Columbia University, New York, consisting of some 170 pieces of Indian silver created during the Raj. These items are catalogued in Mapin’s new book with a detailed description of each, precede d by five scholarly essays on how colonial requirements and tastes shaped the art of the silversmith. The word “design” is used in its older sense to mean surface ornamentations rather than the forms which they adorned.

The second half of the 19th century was the Age of the great Exhibitions, the first of which was held at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. This enormous glass structure, enclosing 19 acres, housed machinery, manufactures, raw materials and fine arts from 34 countries and 30 colonies of the Empire; and the excellence of Indian handicrafts, ranging from carpets to furniture, and metal ware to lacquer work, was acclaimed by critics as eminent as William Morris. Subsequent exhibitions, held over a period of 75 years, created a cultural story through which the British experienced India, and Indians learnt about themselves.

In 1875 and the following year, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, travelled extensively throughout India, and was welcomed with lavish gifts, largely of silver, sometimes even gold, by Maharajas, corporate honchos, high officials, and the various associations that he honoured with a visit. This treasure trove was displayed two years later at the Paris Exhibition where several pieces won medals and were acclaimed for their beauty of design and skill in execution.

They came largely from two sources: the workshop of P. Orr & Sons in Madras which produced Swami silver adorned with Hindu religious motifs; and Kutchi ware created at the establishment of Oomersee Mawji, specialising in embossed floral patterns. The craftsman’s chief problem was to adapt Indian motifs to European shapes in tea sets, cutlery, salvers, and a host of presentation items which would appeal to the Western taste for the exotic without being bizarre. The results were not always felicitous. George Birdwood cited a large presentation shield covered with Puranic gods as “an amazing production of misapplied energy”. The emblems, he concedes, are admirably wrought, but on a shield of Anglo-Indian design “the effect produced is most discordant and unpleasing”.

Silver, de rigueur on formal occasions, was bound up with the niceties of British etiquette which seem to us rather comical. Take for example the calling card, essential to the entry of newcomers into the social scene at a cantonment. They would move from one bungalow to the next leaving a calling card, or two, or even three depending on whether the giver and the receiver was married or single.

Printed on expensive ivory paper, one needed a case to protect them, generally made of richly patterned silver presumably to impress the bearer who opened the front door. He would receive the card on an equally ornate salver and gravely announce that the family was “Not at Home” though the callers knew that they were very much there. To walk into someone’s house and say “Hi” would have been an unforgiveable solecism. The card cases shown in the book represent a cross section of styles. Krishna is shown dancing on Kaliya, there is a jungle scene from Lucknow, graceful floral patterns from Kutch and filigree work from Orissa.

Serving tea was another ritual, and a set consisting of teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl was the commonest presentation article. Sometimes there was a matching tray and another pot containing hot water to be poured over the tea leaves for a second round of the brew. An elaborate example of this five-piece set features the 10 avatars of Vishnu, some other deities, and below them a series of lively festival processions circling each piece. The handles are fashioned as serpents with spiral tails, and open-mouthed yalis form the spouts. Another set from Kutch consists of three unique pieces in the form of quails, a mother-bird and her chicks, with scalloped bodies and fully feathered wings and tails.

There are mugs and goblets, ornate presentation cups and salvers, bowls and vases, spittoons and wine carafes, and cutlery where even knife blades and the bowls of spoons are decorated. A dessert service of Swami silver consists of 92 pieces of cutlery profusely patterned with birds, animals, leaves, ferns, deities, temples, houses, and scenes of hunting, sacred processions and rural life. No motif is repeated.

The most intriguing item is a silver rocking chair, European in every detail and florally patterned in the Kutchi style, with a large round hole in the seat. What could this be, one wonders. A portable toilet seat, perhaps, made for some crackpot Maharaja or nabob who thought that rocking was necessary to induce bowel movement?? Alas no, a more prosaic object as it turns out, a wine bottle holder just 12 inches in height.

Apart from the Swami and the Kutchi there are other regional styles. The Alwar silversmith had a particular fondness for large, delicately textured butterflies and birds, and Burmese motifs were taken exclusively from the Ramayana and the Jatakas. From Calcutta came rural scenes, combined with a religious theme in a striking jug showing the descent of the Ganga from Brahma through Shiva’s hair to the plains below where sages sit along its banks.

The Kashmiri style was the most innovative, derived from its distinctive culture. Teapots were shaped like kangris, water jugs like surahis and gravy servers like kashkuls, the elongated boat shaped begging bowls carried by holy men. The favoured motifs were paisley, coriander flowers and leaves, poppies, and the foliage of the chinar tree. In a technique known as parcel-gilt peculiar to the region, gold patterns were sometimes raised on a silver background.

The pictures are superb and the text is scholarly and well written. Vidya Dehejia goes beyond the description of a craft to recreate the lifestyle of an age very different from ours. Sadly, the fine print defeats the reader at every turn. As for the notes, in even smaller print, this reviewer summoned up her store of patience and fortified her resolve with a magnifying glass, but finally gave up. So here is a fervent plea to the publishers. Please Mapinji or whatever ji you may be, have mercy upon our poor, tired eyes.

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