A primer, white nephrite jade with inset small, red and green enamelled gold panels of various shapes, some repairs to the enamels, Mughal, formerly in the Guthrie Collection

A primer, fashioned in white nephrite jade and inset with gold wire and extensively decorated with small, inset gold panels that have been line-engraved and then filled with green and red enamels, some of which have subsequently been repaired with a coloured filler. One panel has lost the enamel completely and some of the gold setting.
The hollow primer is somewhat hemispherical in shape with a short, integral spout and a large base. The base is flat except for two integrally carved, flattened loops, and it has been decorated with a flowering plant, carved in low relief with the two loops also being carved so as to form two leaves of the plant. This decoration forms a central, circular panel within an outer border of a continuous band of stylised leaves. At the top of the hemispherical dome, there is a small, circular, disc-like plug, decorated with a central arrangement of red-enamelled panels, surrounded by smaller green panels. The hole in the spout and the hole that the plug fills have been the only two openings to the inside of the primer, and it is through the plugged hole that the entire hollowing-out process was performed. The craftsmanship is exceptional.

This primer was originally in the Guthrie collection and was purchased for the sum of £60-0-0, when he sold 81 of his objects to the India Museum in 1868. It was subsequently transferred to the South Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria & Albert Museum) in 1879.

Charles Seton Guthrie was an important collector of eastern coins and Mughal Empire jade and rock crystal objects. He was the second son of Scottish parents, both of whom were from noble and landed families, and his father worked for the East India Company in Calcutta.
Guthrie most probably developed his interest in jade and rock crystal when he studied geology as a 17 year old cadet in 1825 in Addiscombe, and he joined the Bengal Engineers in 1828.
Through his family’s established connection with the Inglis and Lister families, he became acquainted with Harry Inglis and his Anglo-Indian wife Sophia (nee Lister). He may well have received gifts of objects that Harry had acquired as proceeds from his Indian military campaigns. Harry was the son and heir of George Inglis who owned Inglis & Co., a large Indian trading company.
During his time in India, Charles Guthrie enhanced his collections with acquisitions financed by his army pay and also income from properties in his late mother’s estate.
He subsequently retired at the honorary rank of Colonel in 1857, although he returned to England in 1855, at the same time as Harry and Sophia, due to having 2 years of accumulated leave.
Following Harry’s death in 1860, his embalmed body was returned to India, accompanied by Sophia and Charles, where it was interred in an above-ground tomb. Sophia inherited Harry’s vast estate, which almost certainly contained many fine jewels and Mughal objects. Sophia began living together with Charles in Calcutta, bearing him a son in 1862. Following a financially significant arrangement being agreed by Sophia with Charles, the two eventually married in 1863 with the family returning to England a short time thereafter.
Sophia died in 1866, with Charles being named as an executor with instruction to liquidate her un-itemised English estate which included “jewels, trinkets and shawls”.
Soon thereafter, in 1868, Guthrie sold part of his collection of jade and rock crystal objects to The India Museum and his large coin collection to a museum in Germany. Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie died in 1874 and the remainder of his collections was sold at auction, in accordance with the terms of his will, with many objects finding their way into other important collections and then subsequently to the museum.

This exceptionally well-crafted primer was probably made in the imperial Mughal workshops in the second half of the 17th century. Its body is fashioned from a single piece of nephrite jade, a hard and durable material that requires patience and skill to work. This is especially true when the process requires hollowing out cavities to form containers or other receptacles. The primer has been set with enamelled gold panels
It was previously owned by the notable collector of Mughal jade and rock crystal objects, Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie.

02547(IS)