Sunday, June 17, 2012

Mughal


Mughal (20" x 7" x 5"H) is a chest which was recently completed though planned long ago.  In the late 90's, through an art dealer in New York City, through another art dealer in Florida, and through Harrod's of London,  a chest was commissioned by a certain Sultan for his priceless antique dagger.   The Sultan had previously purchased two other of my chests through the same chain of middlemen, but for this commission he wanted the circuitry to be all in gold, and so from vintage circuitry in my collection the design was created and all of the circuitry was reproduced by a circuit manufacturer completely in 24K gold instead of the usual base metals.
Because I needed to have a spare piece of each circuit in case of mistakes, etc., all of the gold circuitry needed for the Sultan's commission was duplicated, and except for the piece which goes inside the lid, all ended up as leftovers.  As I wished, these would be available to create another nearly identical chest someday.  Partly finished a few years ago, I decided it's time to complete it and offer it.    The interior space of the chest is about 20" x 5.5" x 3.5"   On the bottom of the inside (as with all the chests) is a removable black velvet-covered board under which the piece is signed, dated and titled.

My working title has been "The Sultan's Leftovers" but in keeping with the way I've titled other pieces, it has been named for the Mughal (or Mogul) period of art which flourished in India from the Muslim conquest in the 1500's until the time of the British Empire.