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Zinc Cooling Bottle with Silver & Gilt Mounts
Northern India
18th century
height: 32.5cm, diameter: 22cm, weight: 1.546kg
This rare bottle comprises a bulbous base fashioned from plain zinc sheets shaped and
soldered together and a neck and lid in high grade cast and chased silver. The faceted neck
rises to an acanthus leaf border.
The lid, in the form of an architectural Mughal-like dome, rises to a gilded bud like finial above a
petal flourish. The silver mounts and chain are similar in form and style to a silver perfume bottle
with a chain ascribed by Zebrowski (1997, p. 47) to Rajasthan, circa 1700.
The lid is attached to the neck by means of the original silver chain.
Bottles such as this example were used to cool liquids – water or perhaps wine. The zinc bases
often were encased in cloth which was then soaked with a water and saltpetre solution to chill the
contents.
Zinc as a metal, was prized throughout the Islamic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. By the second half of the seventeenth century metalworkers had discovered that zinc
was quite malleable at only a little above the boiling point of water so making vessels from sheet
zinc became more widespread.
Reference: An example of a similar style cooling bottle is illustrated in Terlinden, C., Mughal
Silver Magnificence: 16th-19th Centuries, Antalga, 1987, page 114. An Ottoman example is
shown in Christie's London, 'Islamic Art and Manuscripts', October 12, 2004, lot 126. The
perfume bottle referred to above is in Zebrowski, M., Gold, Silver & Bronze from Mughal India,
Alexandria Press, 1997.
Inventory no.: 784
This Item is available - Ask about this item
Zinc Cooling Bottle with Silver & Gilt Mounts
Northern India
18th century
height: 32.5cm, diameter: 22cm, weight: 1.546kg
This rare bottle comprises a bulbous base fashioned from plain zinc sheets shaped and
soldered together and a neck and lid in high grade cast and chased silver. The faceted neck
rises to an acanthus leaf border.
The lid, in the form of an architectural Mughal-like dome, rises to a gilded bud like finial above a
petal flourish. The silver mounts and chain are similar in form and style to a silver perfume bottle
with a chain ascribed by Zebrowski (1997, p. 47) to Rajasthan, circa 1700.
The lid is attached to the neck by means of the original silver chain.
Bottles such as this example were used to cool liquids – water or perhaps wine. The zinc bases
often were encased in cloth which was then soaked with a water and saltpetre solution to chill the
contents.
Zinc as a metal, was prized throughout the Islamic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. By the second half of the seventeenth century metalworkers had discovered that zinc
was quite malleable at only a little above the boiling point of water so making vessels from sheet
zinc became more widespread.
Reference: An example of a similar style cooling bottle is illustrated in Terlinden, C., Mughal
Silver Magnificence: 16th-19th Centuries, Antalga, 1987, page 114. An Ottoman example is
shown in Christie's London, 'Islamic Art and Manuscripts', October 12, 2004, lot 126. The
perfume bottle referred to above is in Zebrowski, M., Gold, Silver & Bronze from Mughal India,
Alexandria Press, 1997.
Inventory no.: 784
This Item is available - Ask about this item
