Object Description
This is a superb antique Victorian brass and Coromandel cased three decanter tantalus with engraved cut brass mounts, Circa 1870 in date.
Skillfully crafted in Coromandel with a stylish engraved brass locking system and fitted with three cut crystal decanters with stoppers.
The locking system is complete with the original key.
It is a highly decorative piece which is very practical and would make a lovely gift.
Condition:
In excellent condition having been beautifully cleaned and waxed in our workshops.
Dimensions in cm:
Height 32 cm x Width 37 cm x Depth 15 cm
Dimensions in inches:
Height 1 foot, 1 inch x Width 1 foot, 3 inches x Depth 6 inches
Coromandel wood or Calamander wood
is a valuable wood from India, Sri Lanka and South East Asia. It is of a hazel-brown color, with black stripes (or the other way about), very heavy and hard. It is also known as Macassar Ebony or variegated ebony and is closely related to genuine ebony, but is obtained from different species in the same genus; one of these is Diospyros quaesita Thwaites, from Sri Lanka. The name Calamander comes from the local sinhalese name, ‘kalu-medhiriya’, which means dark chamber; referring to the characteristic ebony black wood.
Coromandel wood has been logged to extinction over the last 2 to 3 hundred years and is no longer available for new work in any quantity. Furniture in coromandel is so expensive and so well looked after that even recycling it is an unlikely source. A substitute, Macassar Ebony, has similar characteristics and to the untrained eye is nearly the same but it lacks the depth of colour seen in genuine Coromandel.
Our reference: A5258