Antique PERSON KHATAM Kari INLAY MARQUETRY Wooden BOX High Relief Scene Bone OLD

Description

U
p for bids is this Antique
PERSON KHATAM Kari INLAID MARQUETRY Wooden JEWELRY / DRESSER BOX
This stunning
example of "Khatam-Kari"
measures 2" high x 8 5/8" x 4 1/2".  It is beautiful.  It was masterfully handcrafted.  It is in wonderful condition, especially for its age.  There is some discoloration on the back corner, but I believe this could be cleaned off.  I will leave that up to the lucky winner of this auction.
This box is all around in Khatam technique, with the rare exception of a hand painted top in high relief.  I thought the top may have been carved, but I'm not sure what process was used to created the raised design.  It must have taken the artisan untold hours and days of  meticulous work to complete this gorgeous masterpiece.
Designing of inlaid articles is a highly elaborate process. There are sometimes more than 400 pieces per square inch in a work of average quality. Thin rods of different colored woods, bone, brass, etc. were glued together into long bunches that could have a round, rectangular, or polygonal cross-section. The bunches were cut into thin slices and combined with others to create intricate patterns end up side by side, smoothed, oiled and polished.  Inlaid articles in the Safavid era took on a special significance as artists created their precious artworks.  Woods used include betel, walnut, cypress and pine.
Information:
Khatam-Kari is a delicate and meticulous marquetry produced since the Safavid period: at this time, khatam was so popular in the court that princes learned this technique at the same level of music or painting.  In the 18th and 19th centuries, katahm declined, before being stimulated under the reign of Reza Shah, with the creation of craft schools in Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. "Khatam" means "incrustation", and "Khatam-kari" (Persian) incrustation work". This craft consists in the production of incrustation patterns (generally star shaped), with thin sticks of wood (ebony, teak, ziziphus, orange, rose), brass (for golden parts), camel bones (white parts).   Sticks are assembled in triangular beams, themselves assembled and glued in a strict order to create a cylinder, 70 cm in diameter, whose cross-section is the main motif: a six-branch star included in a hexagon. These cylinders are cut into shorter cylinders, and then compressed and dried between two wooden plates, before being sliced for the last time, in 1 mm wide tranches. These sections are ready to be plated and glued on the object to be decorated, before lacquer finishing. The tranche can also be softened through heating in order to wrap around objects. Many objects can be decorated in this fashion, included jewelry/decorative boxes.  These are true works of art.  C
oming from techniques imported from China and improved by Persian know-how, this craft existed for more than 700 years and is still perennial in Shiraz and Isfahan.
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