AN ENAMELLED AND DIAMOND-SET SUITE OF PAAN BOXES

This bejeweled suite of paan boxes illustrates the wealth and splendor of the richest royal courts of India in the eighteenth century and the use of the most lavishly decorated objects in Indian courtly tradition. The larger paan daan (container) would have been used for holding betel nut and prepared paan. The smaller boxes, an unusual feature, were for additional spices and would have been part of the elaborate ritual of preparing and offering paan to guests at formal durbar assemblies (Paris 2017, pp.194-195). The floral gem settings and the translucent green enamel employed for decoration suggests Hyderabad in the Deccan as the centre of production. For other similarly decorated objects from Hyderabad, dateable to the third quarter of the eighteenth century, see lots 139 and 241.
A partly gilded, silver paan box and tray of similar style and size, dated to the second half of the eighteenth century, is in the Clive Collection at Powis Castle (Archer et al, New York, 1987, p.74, no.86, ill. p.58).