Many happy returns
tables and elaborate mirrors made from sandalwood or more rare tropical padauk wood (it resembles rosewood) and inlaid with ebony, ivory, teak and mother of pearl, carved with birds, animals and flowers.
At first, they copied the style of Dutch furniture, which the Indian craftsmen knew well from the commissions from merchants in the Netherlands, but English styles followed.
Shropshire-born Robert Clive of India (1725-1774), a military officer and HEIC official who established the company’s political control in Bengal, is known to have returned home with a fortune larger than anyone else’s.
Inventories of his house in Berkeley Square and his mansions in Walcot, near Craven Arms and Claremont, Surrey, show many pieces of Vizagapatam.
Another rich custodian of Vizagapatam was Oxfordshire-born Warren Hastings (1732-1818) the first British Governor General of India from 1772-1785, who brought back a large collection of tables, cabinets, chairs and boxes for his town house in London’s prestigious Park Lane. He was later accused, but subsequently cleared, of corruption.
Soon Vizagapatam was being made and exported in smaller pieces to appeal to the less well-heeled. Pieces to look out for today include chess boards and chessmen, backgammon boards, tea chests and caddies, and other more plain lidded boxes and caskets, writing, sewing and work boxes, some modelled as miniature pieces of furniture, writing slopes and hand mirrors.
They dated generally from the mid-19th century and remain affordable given their charming but far less complex decoration when compared to grander pieces.
Inlays were replaced in the 19th century with sheets of materials such as bone, horn and porcupine quills, engraved with neo-classical designs of scrolling foliage and chequerboard picked out in black, the designs reminiscent of Tunbridgeware.
Among the most charming are work boxes modelled as a house or cottage, complete with central chimney, the roof carved to represent thatch and the exterior decorated with a door, windows, a post and rail fence and trees.
Beneath the hinged lid it is divided into compartments, some with lids, others padded as in cushions, while a small drawer extends from the base of the side of the house, but only when the roof is open and a small pin – often Indian silver – is removed.
Lucky collectors sometimes find this overlooked extra contains its original sewing tools, but be prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege of taking it home from an auction.