An enamelled brass bowl, India, Mughal, circa 1700

The squat, rounded form of the present lot can be compared with seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Persian, Mughal and Deccani brass and bidri basins. Examples with flared rims would have been made with matching ewers and were used for ablutions before prayers, and for washing before and after meals (see Zebrowski 1997, nos.238, 239, 241, 246 and 248). The colours of the enamels find comparison with coloured glazes seen on floral patterned, Mughal earthenware tiles produced in the seventeenth century in North India and Lahore. For seventeenth century Mughal tiles from the Howard Hodgkin collection which sold in these rooms, 24 October 2017, see lots 289-291, 318-320, 374, 376-9, 385; see also The Stuart Cary Welch Collection Part One, 6 April 2011, Lot 117, and Arts of the Islamic World, 9 April 2008, lots 227 and 229.