Item Description
Monumental Antique Wooden Dowry Trunk, made in India. This very large and very old wooden dowry trunk is bound by a variety of fittings including tin and mixed metals. This metal-over-wood trunk is intricately decorated across the front with a repoussé frieze of embossed metal motifs including elephants, peacocks, blossoms, and horses or dragons. The decorative motifs across the front total eighty-one. Each side is designed in a manner which simulates rectangular blocks of brick or stone. A wooden wheel is affixed to each of the four lower corners and facilitates moving the trunk from one location to another. Two metal lock fittings are mounted on the trunk’s front surface and each comes with a large metal key. The lid is attached to the trunk’s body with metal lift-hinges and a metal lifting-handle is attached to each of the two sides. There are four hidden rectangular compartments in the trunk’s interior and one interior storage step at one edge of the floor. Old dowry trunks, often referred to today as hope chests, were sometimes made of teak wood and covered with bronze and tin accents. The intricacy of their construction and elaborateness of their decoration reflected the statue of the family whose daughter’s dowry was to be housed in the trunk until marriage. Some rusting commensurate with age. Circa 18th century.
