A FINE AND RARE MUGHAL WHITE JADE QUATRELOBED SPICE BOX AND COVER

India, 18th century

India, 18th century
The box expertly carved and hollowed with four cylindrical compartments with straight walls, supporting a gently-curved lid carved with stylised leaves surmounted by a flower-bud finial, the cover's underside carved with a central flowerhead issuing four stylised leaves, the smooth translucent stone of even white tone.
9cm (3 1/2in) long. (2).

十八世紀 痕都斯坦式白玉雕花瓣形分格蓋盒

Provenance:
Parry Collection, London, and thence by descent

來源：
倫敦Parry家族收藏，並由後人保存迄今

The present box and cover is an exquisite example of Mughal jade carving at its very finest. The master carver accomplished a perfectly balanced quatrelobed form in the box, to properly match the four-domed cover. The superb white jade stone was greatly admired by the carver focusing on form with minimal decoration allowing the viewer to enjoy the natural quality of the translucent white jade stone.

Indian Mughal jades found their way to central Asia and thus to the Imperial Court in Beijing, where they were sent as tribute from inner-Asian regions. The Qianlong Emperor was a great admirer of these so-called 'Hindustan' jades and praised them for their exquisite lightness, thin walls and florid decoration. The Emperor's passion for Mughal jades led him in 1768, to write Tianzhu wuyindu kao'e, a scholarly text on the geography of Hindustan and the derivation of its name. The area he identified is today northern India, with the city of Agra at its centre. Subsequently, Mughal jades came to have a large influence on jade production in China.

See a gem-set jade quatrelobed box and cover in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.02.18.777a–c). See also a gold-embellished Mughal jade quatrelobed box and cover, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Teng Shu-p'ing, Exquisite Beauty: Islamic Jades, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2007, p.111, no.129; and a further related semi-precious-stone-inlaid jade quatrelobed box and cover illustrated in ibid., p.112, no.131.

Compartmented jade spice boxes, such as the present lot, were produced for the Mughal elite, to hold cardamom pods or stuffed betel-leaves (pan) which were used to colour the lips red as a cosmetic, or to be chewed as then was believed to freshen the mouth and help digestion; see S.Aziz Natnoo, 'Betel-Leaf (Pan) Culture: A Study of Mughal India in International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol 5, issue 1, January-February 2018, p.39.

Compare with a related quatrefoil carved jade box, north India, circa 1740-1800, which was sold at Christie's New York, 19 June 2019, lot 198.

白玉質，琢作四瓣花式盒，略帶方形，蓋面中央浮雕葉紋，立雕花蕾為蓋鈕，內部隔作四格。本品玉質色澤勻淨，器壁通透，線型流暢，打磨精到，且通體除立雕花鈕外無附加紋飾，充分凸顯玉材自然之美，是痕都斯坦玉雕精品。

痕都斯坦即指蒙兀兒帝國（1526-1857）；1768年，乾隆皇帝親自撰《天竺五印度考訛》一文，考證發音，定名「痕都斯坦」。在蒙兀兒帝國治下，伊斯蘭玉器逐漸形成獨特的裝飾風格，並於十八世紀後期經新疆源源不斷貢入清廷，令乾隆皇帝大為激賞。

相類玉盒可見紐約大都會藝術博物館館藏一例鑲金嵌寶帶托盤四格玉盒，藏品編號02.18.777a–c，形似本例。另見一例青白玉分格盒，收錄於鄧淑蘋著，《國色天香——伊斯蘭玉器》，國立故宮博物院，台北，2007年，頁112，編號131。形如本例的分隔蓋盒多為蒙兀兒精英階層盛裝香料之用，參S.Aziz Natnoo著，〈Betel-Leaf (Pan) Culture: A Study of Mughal India〉，收錄於《國際人文與社會科學期刊》，卷五，第一輯，2018年1-2月，頁39。

紐約佳士得曾售一件約1740–1800年玉分格盒，2019年6月19日，拍品編號198，可為比對。