Featured Nagina carving, a lost art

I'm sure every antique collector looks for incorrectly listed treasures in their field, what makes a good antique collector is having as many fields as they can, I now just look for quality, high end craftsmanship and expensive materials or expensive hardwear. The only thing that stops everybody doing this is fakes and reproductions, you have got to know what's right, that's where the years of learning about antiques comes in.
My brother once said to me "surely these sellers know what they have" when I told him I bought a valuable antique for little money, he was convinced he knew what he had and what it was worth, I asked him to go through his record collection that he had had since he was young and pull out the records that were worth over £50, he said "good point" lol

 

Wow. What a bargain!!

 

Yeah, I haven't done much with that yet, got all 9 rusted locks working and cut a key, replaced the back, ordered some funky velvet for the top cleaned it. I'm yet to strip or remove the top canvas or cut and replace the missing wood and then you've got all the finishing ect.
Anyway I bought this box the other day on a punt (I'm quite sure), what do you recon?

 

nice box......
what were the indentations for , on the right hand rim..?

 

It would have had a silver box lid stay.

 

my thoughts as well , but never seeing one , I'm still trying to imagine it..

what size is the box.........

 

It looks like it's missing some thin slices of wood on the inside, maybe to old correspondance.

 

It's 21cm 12 cm 16cm tall, here is a Sadeli box with the same stay's

 

10 Q !!

that's pretty neat !!!

 

Lol, it's missing more than that, it needs a total restoration but I couldn't let it pass, it wasn't a lot

 

Very nice piece. The ivory is unusual. Very detailed plant and foliage motifs on the fretwork. Not normally something I’ve seen on a Vizagapatam box. There’s a similar type of decoration at the V&A. I’ve included photos below

 

As promised, here is my first effort at restoration. Lots of mistakes but useful exercise . It’s a before and after.

 

It looks much happier now.

 

I‘d like to think so.

 

Thank you ever so much, I've not been able to confirm my hunch until now, I did buy the box suspecting it was Vizagapatam but I couldn't find a single example of one like it until you posted this. What a find , I was beginning to think I'd lost my touch, can't thank you enough, I've been searching for days and found nothing. I wonder if there's a link to it online or is this from a book?

 

That's what I like to see, a box saved. It's a good job and on your first attempt, my first attempt was a total failure lol. I'm yet to confirm my sadeli transfering plan but very happy to share if it works, I have a writing slope with carved panels + sadeli and that high relief carved box with sadeli to do if it works + the sandalwood desk all on the bench ATM but just haven't got round to doing any of them because I've been otherwise occupied with my Son's three months off (and I'm lazy lol)

 

Thank you, I found it https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71265/sliding-book-stand-unknown/

 

And now when GoogleLens scours around, it will find your lovely photos & descriptions. We're all - here, FaceBook, Instagram, etc. - helping to price ourselves out from the the things we love.

 

It's a double edged sword, on the one hand you have novices knowing what things are and less likely to list them in the wrong place for too little money, and on the other verification by museums that your piece is worthy of a space.
I've been testing AI to see if it could find me antiques at cheap prices (no luck) but also it's given me a good insight into just how bad AI is at recognising antiques, it will answer with all the confidence in the world and if you point out it's got it wrong and give it the right answer it says "oh my mistake, I shouldn't have answered so confidently"
IMHO around 40% of the time AI gets it right or allows you to find the right answer but the other 60% it will confidently tell you the wrong answer and make up complete fiction around it's wrong answer and if you tell it not to do that and say "please say if you don't know" that only lasts for the time you are in chat, a new thread will see it return to it's fictional ways.
I don't know if it's just my field of antiques, there seems to be a lot of disinformation surrounding Anglo-Indian antiques so maybe that's the issue?

 

there seems to be a lot of disinformation surrounding ...

.. pick a topic.....

Any Topic !!!!!!!!