Mughal India’s Magnificence that was taken to England is up for auction at the Christie’s
CLIVE of India, soldier, administrator, businessman, adventurer, was the man whose exploits ensured Britain’s supremacy in India in the mid-18th century. His name conjures up image of how the British ventured into and fell in love with the world of the Mughal Emperors and their princely Courts, a world if hierarchical formality, screened mystery and extravagant opulence.
The jewelled jade flask is the most impressive of all the early Mughal objects collected by Lord Clive. Its workmanship, the quality and colour of the stones, and the astonishing condition, all combine to make it one of the most glorious of all Mughal jewelled artefacts to have survived to the present day and to remain in private hands.
Made of soft green jade, the design leaves considerable amounts of the jade surface visible, enabling the inset and inlaid decoration to form a wonderfully rich but delicate lattice work over the surface. This delicacy continues throughout the object to surprise the viewer. The gold-lined interior for example has at the base of the neck a single ruby suspended on an openwork lattice of gold which also serves as a filter. The mouth has floral design inset with rubies and emeralds which are normally completely hidden by the cover. Even the underside of the foot has an inset swirling floral design. Redolent of royalty, the flask combines the most extravagant materials using workmanship of the highest sophistication.
This flask probably formed part of the immense treasure removed from the court of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah by Nadir Shah, the invading Iranian monarch who famously looted the Mughal royal treasury in 1739. On his return journey he sent two substantial parts of this treasure with embassies to the Ottoman court in Istanbul and to the Russian Tsars in St. Petersburg. Other parts were dispersed along the return journey from which it seems probable Lord Clive was an unforeseen beneficiary of Nadir Shah’s adventures.
The Hermitage treasure is now the largest surviving group of Mughal gold items of all. It provides two flasks of almost identical shape, each made of gold with a surface completely covered in precious stones. The body of each is similarly divided into vertical panels while the cover of one retains the claw-set finial to the cover, a form of setting very unusual in most Indian jewelled items of this period. There is little doubt that all three were at one stage a part of the fabulously wealthy Imperial Mughal treasury. The remarkable group of other jewelled objects that comprise the rest of the treasure embodies the adoption by Clive of the Indian love of panoply. Jewelled objects, such as the huqqa, dagger and flywhisk in this collection, specifically enhanced the status of the owner. Many Mughal miniatures of the period show Indian potentates invariably with one or more jewelled daggers in their waist sashes. They are frequently depicted smoking a huqqa, and if an attendant is present, he usually holds a flywhisk. All these items would have served strongly to reinforce Lord Clive’s royal position in Indian eyes, a land where extreme opulence formed an immediately recognized symbol of power. — Courtesy: Christie’s Magazine
The Clive of India Treasure: Magnificient Mughal Objects auction will take place at the Chritie’s in London on April 27. Further information may be had through email: wrobinson@christies.com
Mughal India’s Magnificence that was taken to England is up for auction at the Christie’s 
