India, Kashmir, circa 1700

Length: 21 1/4 inches, 54 cm
diameter: 2 3/4 inches, 7 cm

A document holder of cylindrical form, witha removable flat cover to either side. The document holder is applied with papier-mâché on a cloth covered wooden base, which is painted and lacquered with floral motifs in panels, each on a different-coloured background. The inside is painted with tiny gold flowers on a red ground.

Both in shape and decoration, this unusual document holder is strongly reminiscent of somewhat smaller Turkish pen cases in painted and lacquered papier-mâché, examples of which are in the David Collection, Copenhagen 1.
Another comparable ‘case for a scroll’ is in the Khalili collection 2 .

1 See: Art from the World of Islam in the David Collection by Kjeld von Folsach (Copenhagen 2001) nos. 91 and 92, page 113
2 See: The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art: Lacquer of the Islamic Land (part one) by Nasser D. Khalili et al (London 1996) no. 195, pp. 240 -1