AN IMPRESSIVE AND VERY LARGE ANGLO-INDIAN EBONY AND SPECIMEN WOOD-INLAID CENTRE TABLE
Possibly Galle District, Ceylon, Sri Lanka, mid to late 19th century

AN IMPRESSIVE AND VERY LARGE ANGLO-INDIAN EBONY AND SPECIMEN WOOD-INLAID CENTRE TABLE
Possibly Galle District, Ceylon, Sri Lanka, mid to late 19th century

The octagonal tabletop resting on a central stylised and bulbous stem worked as a lotus pedestal with four sloping legs carved in the shape of mythical animals with scaled and winged bodies like snakes and dragons and feline heads, perhaps a local interpretation of makaras or Western chimeras, the top inlaid with rays of five specimens of local coloured woods irradiating from a central pale wood roundel, the edges carved with rosette festoons and foliage, and the sides carved and pierced with further vegetal volutes, rose trellis and stylised floral buds, 138cm max. diam. and approx. 80cm high.

Throughout the 19th century, the Galle District of Ceylon was considered a prime source of South Asian specimen-wood furniture, as many accounts of Western travellers testify. Among the most commonly used local woods, palm, calamander, tamarind, satinwood, jackwood and ebony stand particularly out and would fascinate foreign travellers for their unusual colour combinations. For a comparable carved ebony circular table with an analogous specimen-wood design top, please see A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, 2001, p. 373, fig. 142.

(Quantity:2)