Colonial Indian Silver Mounted Table Lighter

Black Buck Horn Table Lighter with Silver Mounts

This highly unusual table lighter would have been used after dinner for gentlemen to pass around to light their cigars. It comprises the horn of a Black Buck with engraved and repoussed silver mounts to give the item the overall form of a South Indian mythical animal standing on four legs and with a snub nose. The head of the beast is in a similar form to that sometimes seen on seventeenth century cast brass cannons.

Most probably, this piece is from Pondicherry, the French colonial enclave in South India, or nearby.

UK art market.