Six Mughal silver-gilt bridle ornaments, North India, Delhi or Agra, 17th century

S.C. Welch, India, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1985, no.170, p.261

M. Fraser, Selected Works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, London, 2015, cat.25, pp.88-89

India, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 14 September 1985 - 5 January 1986

These gilded silver ornaments in the form of entwined fish would have been used to decorate the bridle of a horse. Mughal paintings often depict horses and elephants lavishly caparisoned, with ornaments made of silver and gold, decorated with gemstones and enamel, and covered with opulent textiles.

The motif of entwined fish may also have a symbolic meaning. A similarly arranged pair can be seen on a Mughal brass talismanic bowl, dated to the first half of the seventeenth century. The fish denoting the configuration of Pisces are depicted as one of the twelve zodiacal figures on the exterior of the bowl (A. Welch 1979, no.80, pp.186-7.)

The fish symbol was also used as a standard in Mughal India. It would be carried during important processions by standard bearers who were either on foot or on elephants and camels riding before the emperor. For a seventeenth century Mughal gilded silver standard in the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, see Keene and Kaoukji 2001, no.8.30, p.106. In the later Mughal period, paired fish were also adopted by the Nawabs of Lucknow as part of their royal insignia and are often seen in the decorative arts from the Awadh region in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The fish motif also symbolises fertility and abundance in many cultures. 17th- and 18th-century tinned copper dishes and bidri bowls from the Deccan decorated with fish are reminiscent of earlier Mamluk and Persian bowls with fish depicted in the centre of their interiors (Zebrowski 1997, nos.575-7, p.350).

These six bridle ornaments would originally have been a part of group of nine. Three from the set were gifted by Stuart Cary Welch to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1987 and are currently on display in their galleries (acc.no. 1987.254.1-.3). Another very similar set of nine silver ornaments is in the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait (LNS 2228 Ja-I; Keene and Kaoukji 2001, no.3.13, p.49). For comparable sets offered at auction, see Christie’s South Kensington, 3 April 2009, lot 358, and Bonhams London, 11 October 2000, lot 835.