Note: This beautiful flask is a rare surviving object composed completely of gold as it was common practice within wealthy Indian households in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to melt down gold in order to re-use it. The scarcity of such objects renders the dating of this piece difficult although the design, centred on a flowering stem with birds and peacocks is comparable to a huqqa base in the Al-Sabah collection, dated to the late sixteenth/early seventeenth century (Keene 2001, p.45, no.3.2). Another interesting comparison in technique and the combination of floral scrolls and peacocks can be made with a cast silver and gilt rosewater sprinkler in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, inv. no. F.1990.1. (see Zebrowski 1997, p.41, no.13)

Sotheby's. Arts of the Islamic World, London, 20 Apr 2016, 10:30 AM