INDO PERSIAN AGATE / SILVER TABLE SNUFF BOX 106.7 GMS VINTAGE TUCSON ESTATE

Description

From an Armory Park historic neighborhood estate in downtown Tucson is this definitely vintage and very possibly antique Indo-Persian silver table snuff box with banded agate lid - an attractive and suitably exotic table necessity meant for some upper tier cosmopolitan home in its day. It may have been brought back from a far off souk or discovered at some chic orientalist venue in Paris - whatever, it aptly demonstrates why such "exotique" objets de virtu from Asia Minor and points further east were once important indicators of status and worldly taste. The box is of good fineness and bears hand accomplished decorative embellishment to the four sides - there is a punch dot workshop marking of Islamic numbers and an inverted heart symbol to the bottom. While certainly not recent,  dating things of this sort is not an area of extreme expertise for me. Is it an earlier 20th century (read prewar) treasure or something even older - I'm not sure which.  I can say you won't find its like at your local mall. The former owner was a collector of good snuff boxes, Spanish Colonial silver, antique Russian icons and other religious art, well you get the idea. Weight is good for the form at about 106.7 grams on my portable digital scale. Condition is quite fine with an appealing aura of time to all surfaces. Be aware I have avoided every urge to refresh away or "improve" upon any natural toning - you want that done, you do it. The bevelled agate set into the lid top is well preserved - there is an unobtrusive natural internal line near the edge on one side, there when cut and mentioned here simply for absolute accuracy. Some ancient crusty residue along the edges of the silver bezel appears to be remnants of original adhesive used in mounting the agate. The lid opens and closes as it should. The interior is fairly clean, with a small amount of old grunge in the corners from previous service. Typical and expected signs of handling (and decades of display on a table) serve to validate the history. I'm basically nitpicking for the obsessive and a look at the pics should give a good idea of appearance and condition. Size is about 2 5/16 in. horizontal and 1 25/32 in. front to back (not counting the thumb piece). About 1 1/16 in. vertical. I'm not sure what else need be said, so there you are.
inkfrog terapeak
inkfrog terapeak