A LARGE INDONESIAN ENAMELLED SILVER FILIGREE BASKET AND COVER

West Sumatra/Padang or Batavia, circa 1700, apparently unmarked
 

With soldered floral motifs filled with blue and green enamel

 

H. 22 x Diam. 18 cm

Note:

The present basket is almost identical to a silver filigree basket also with soldered flowers and leaves however lacking the colourful blue and green enamels as in the present basket. In Een bijzondere doos van zilver-filigrain (Aziatische Kunst, 32ste jaargang, Nr. 4, December 2002) Jan van Campen attributes the basket to Indian and Chinese artisans working in Batavia. Jan Veenendaal (Asian Art and the Dutch Taste, Waanders Uitgevers and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2014) on the other hand argues that this kind of silver filigree work is more likely to have been the work of Chinese and Malay silversmiths working in West Sumatra, Padang. However, the enamelling may have been done in Batavia. The present basket certainly is very similar to a filigree box with green enamelling, modelled on a Chinese example, from West Sumatra illustrated in Jan Veenendaal’s book (ill. 195 and 196).