An Early Sri Lankan Ivory Box at Belton House, England
Many old stately homes – the former ‘seats’ of England’s aristocrats – today are managed if not owned by the National Trust, a large, charitable foundation that preserves such hoses for future generations. Many of the houses retain many of their original furnishings. Quite often items of furniture or other artworks are kept in their original rooms as part of the wider decor, often with the National Trust seemingly unaware of either the rarity of what they have or its current commercial value.
One such example in Belton House is a box of solid ivory carved with Batavian-style flower motifs and with chased silver mounts is from Sri Lanka and which dates to 1680-1720. A similar example is the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands. The ivory box sits at the foot of a bed in one of the stately bedrooms. the so-called Chinese Bedroom, named after the hand-painted Chinese wallpaper, which dates to 1800-1840 which adorns the walls. Today, its commercial value could be as high as £150,000 (almost US$200,000). It is a particularly beautiful example and would be a significant piece, probably in a glass cabinet on its own in any of the world’s major museums.
Sri Lanka had elephants but their tusks were small and with their Buddhist beliefs the Ceylonese were loathe to kill elephants for their tusks, and so most of the ivory used at the time in Sri Lanka was imported from Africa probably via Portugal and Amsterdam. The carving was done by hereditary members of ivory carving guilds or castes. The carving on this and other related chests and cabinets seems to have been based on flower motifs that appeared in European engravings or on Portuguese and Dutch silverwork at the time.
Belton House is in the East Midlands in England, almost 200 kilometres north of London. The House was built in 1683 by the original owner Sir John Brownlow, a successful lawyer who was appointed Chief Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, a particularly lucrative position. Successive descendants added to the house and its furnishings and so today it has a wide range of English, European and Asian furnishings, typical of many English stately homes.
Above: The Chinese Bedroom, showing the Sri Lankan ivory box sitting atop a dark wooden box before the bed.
Above: The facade of Belton House, from the rear.
© Michael Backman
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