Colonial Indian Kutch Silver Tea Pot

Chased, Oblong Silver Teapot

This fine, solid silver tea pot has a pleasing, flattened, oval-form body. It is chased all over with scrolling foliage and flower motifs against a ring-mat background. Hunting scenes can be spied amid the foliage: on one side a hunter in Indian garb is astride a horse and he plunges an unusually long spear into a deer that is also being attacked by a hunting dog. On the other, two dogs attack a wild boar, and another dog ferociously attacks another deer. The scenes draw on the style of traditional stucco wall paintings in Kutch.

The ‘S’-form spout is chased with scrolling leaf and flower motifs. The handle, with two thin bone insulators, is in the form a fat-bodied cobra. The hinged lid is surmounted by a wonderful finial in the form of a coiled cobra rearing its head.

The tea pot is in excellent condition. There are no maker’s marks. There are no dents and no obvious polishing wear. It is heavy in the hand; the silver content has not been economised upon.