Nephrite jade box and coverset with carnelians and rubies in gold, India, 18th century, formerly in the Guthrie Collection

A box and cover, fashioned in translucent white nephrite jade, set with rubies and carved carnelians in gold, in a floral design.
The box is of single-piece construction with a lobed, generally rhomb-shaped form with four internal, highly polished compartments. The exterior sides are set with gems and the base is flat and polished. There are a number of hairline cracks to the body and two chips to the internal rim.
The cover is of the same outline as the box and is gently domed with a concave, well-polished interior. The outer surface is highly decorated with set gems in a floral design and there is a centrally located, small round carved nephrite handle set on top with a ruby cabochon. There are two hairline cracks present.

This box and cover were originally in the Guthrie collection and were purchased for the sum of £72-0-0, 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 small box is made of nephrite jade set with carved rubies and carnelians in gold. It has four interior divisions. The carnelian inlays have been carved to imitate the veining of petals. It was made somewhere within the Mughal empire, probably in about 1700, and was part of the collection formed by Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie in the mid-19th century and sold to the Indian Museum in 1868.

02540(IS) to 02540A/(IS)