661. Colonial Kashmiri Silver Copper Plate

Inscribed Silvered Copper Plate

This heavy, finely worked plate employs what is known as Yarkand decoration – a decorative technique unique to Kashmiri metalwork. The plate is decorated all over with the Kashmiri mosaic pattern and the wide rim is enhanced with raised kinj decoration to give a dramatic and tactile effect.

Inscribed to the reverse with ‘1877 / Gulmurg Local Handicap / ‘Chocolate’ Ridden by Major Auchinleck’. (Gulmurg is a colonial era hill station in Kashmir, near Srinigar, and is renown for its beauty being surrounded by snow-capped peaks.)

A plate of very similar design is illustrated in Wilkinson WRT, Indian Silver 1858-1947, 1999, p. 112.