An Indo-Portuguese Thane tray

This rectangular tray with sloping borders, made from teak (Tectona grandis) and East Indian rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia), is lavishly decorated with inlays in sandalwood (Santalum album), elephant ivory, and green-dyed bone, all secured with brass pins. The corners are protected by gilt-copper openwork fittings.

The decoration of the central well follows a carpet-like composition, with a large field featuring a polylobate rosette within a central round medallion, flanked by flowering plants stemming from vases. Between the field and the wide border (and between these and the everted border), there is a narrow border of six-petalled rosettes alternating between ivory and sandalwood. The decoration of the wide border consists of scrolling flowers and, at the corners, nagini—figures from Hindu mythology with women’s heads and torsos, touching their breasts as symbols of fertility, their lower bodies resembling double-coiled serpents. The wide everted borders features a frieze of repeating flowering plants.

The type of decoration, materials, and techniques used in the manufacture of this unique tray point to an origin within the Northern Province of the Portuguese State of India, likely Thane, a well-documented centre for lavish marquetry work.[1] Considering its size and exuberant decoration, this tray was probably intended for secular use, possibly for serving sweetmeats and other delicacies in noble or patrician households.

Rectangular trays with sloping sides were a common shape in China during the late Ming dynasty. Sixteenth and seventeenth-century blue-and-white porcelain trays of this shape, like those made from lacquered wood, usually decorated with mother-of-pearl inlays, probably derive from metal prototypes in gold or silver. This may be ascertained from their square shape, straight angles and raised feet, following a construction, assembly and soldering typical of metalwork.

Similarly shaped trays can be observed in seventeen-century Mughal paintings, used to display gems, jewellery, precious metalwork and luxury textiles. While lacking comparable earlier visual evidence which might better enlighten us on the emergence of this shape in the Indian subcontinent, it is likely that it was adopted from earlier East Asian models.

Lacquered trays of this shape were also made in different parts of Asia for export to Europe, namely to Portugal. A rare group of differently-sized similarly shaped trays survives, encompassing examples made mostly in China, but also Japan and probably the Ryukyu Islands.[2] Usually, such lacquered objects are described in contemporary Portuguese household inventories as Chinese. Four ‘trays from China’ are recorded in the post mortem inventories of Fernando de Noronha (†1608), 3rd Count of Linhares, and his wife Filipa de Sá (†1618).[3] Of these, three featured the earl’s coat-of-arms, and were all ‘gilded and black’, that is lacquered in black and decorated with gold; another three were added to them, totalling seven trays. These would have been similar to Chinese lacquer trays in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon (invs. 1 Band, 2 Band, 3 Band, 5 Band, 26 Band, and 44 Band), some of which have been scientifically analysed and their materials and techniques identified.[4] Alongside rare trays made in India and decorated with marquetry, some carved examples also survive with painted decoration.