Object Description
This is a stunning antique Victorian gentlemen’s coromandel travelling case, circa 1840 in date.
This traveling case features a hinged cover with brass stringing and a shaped plaque. The inside of the lid has a hidden correspondence folder in red Moroccan leather and velvet which opens to reveal a mirror.
The interior is fully lined with a lift out tray above a second tier, and contains the original range of silver plated cut glass bottles, jars and boxes with a fitted manicure set.
Condition:
In excellent condition with no dings, dents or signs of repair. Please see photos for confirmation.
Dimensions in cm:
Height 19 x Width 31 x Depth 22
Dimensions in inches:
Height 7 inches x Width 1 foot x Depth 9 inches
Calamander wood or Coromandel 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: A2252