This breathtaking piece, standing solidly on its four legs has thus far managed to stoically resist my best attempts to take a decent picture of it. Trust me when I tell you that the photographs do not do this piece justice. It’s one of the most bizarrely beautiful things I’ve seen for quite some time.
This is a deceptively weighty piece of metalware – very solidly made, it weighs in at close to 800 grams. Roughly oval in shape, it stands 10cm high,15cm long and 10cm deep.
It is deeply contoured with many complex designs, the focal point being a young female face with features, hair and hood wonderfully detailed. There are also rosebuds, leaves, shoots and stems, as well as abstract wave patterns. To give you an idea on how sharp and defined the detailed high relief on this piece is, the face design stands more than a centimeter proud of the box surface.
The silver-plate is in generally very good condition, and the single recess beneath the lid is really quite cavernous – it would take a lot of jewellery, or a great many trinkets to fill this one up. The sole flaw is that the left hand side hinge pin is broken – this is only noticeable when the box is open, and does not detract from the flowing aesthetics of the piece.