Pair of Kutch Indian Silver Cheroot Containers

This fine pair of solid silver containers are of elongated, oval form that widen as they reach their tops. Each has a hinged, rounded lid that springs open by pressing a silver button.

Each is chased with typically Kutch silverwork: scrolling foliage amid which small depictions of animals are nestled within acanthus leaf borders and all against tooled backgrounds. Each has a small, empty, oval cartouche on top of its domed lid.

The pair of containers might have served various functions but possibly they were used to hold cheroots (a type of native cigar popular in India and Burma) or cigars.

A container of similar proportions and decoration and with a spring button mechanism is in Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum  and this example is described as a cheroot container.

Both are in excellent condition. The two are particularly pleasing and decorative.