Fine, Colonial Lucknow Silver Bachelor’s Teapot

This unusually fine and delicate bachelor’s teapot of compressed spherical form, is of high-grade silver that has been intricately engraved all over. The body is decorated with the coriander pattern with fine coriander leaves and dozens of tiny coriander flowers. The top of the body has been engraved with two borders – one of leafy flourishes, and the other with a scrolling grapevine.

The domed lid is engraved with more coriander leaves. The hinged lid has a solid-cast silver finial that is either a fruit or a bud on a stem with a pair of leaves.

The teapot sits on four pierced feet rendered as leafy flourishes.

The fine spout is engraved with the coriander leaf pattern.

The comma-shaped handle is wrapped in the original raffia binding.

The teapot is in excellent condition. It is one of the finest examples of this type of engraving work from Lucknow that we have seen.

 

Above: the flowers & leaves of the coriander plant on which the motifs for this piece are derived.