Bidri Hookah Bowl with Roses (c. 1650s): Art, History and Details

Bidri Hookah Bowl with Roses (c. 1650s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Hookah bowls were used for the enjoyment of tobacco or any other smoked substance during moments of relaxation. They were also aesthetic objects to be admired in elite gatherings of connoisseurs. The flowering rose bushes on this fine early example, made shortly after the introduction of tobacco-smoking in India, would have called to mind celebrated poetical works, such as the Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Sa'di (Persian, 1210–1291 or 1292).

Object facts

• Title: Bidri Hookah Bowl with Roses
• Date: c. 1650s
• Culture: Southwestern India, Deccan, Karnataka, Bidar​
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: Zinc alloy with silver and brass inlay
• Dimensions: Diameter: 16.5 cm (6 1/2 in.); height: 18.5 cm (7 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2020.207

A detail from the museum

Bidri ware is cast from condensed vapors of zinc mined from Sawar in Rajasthan.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Festival of India in the United States, 1985-1986. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1985.
• Desai, Vishakha N., B. N. Goswamy, and Ainslie Thomas Embree. Life at Court: Art for India's Rulers, 16th-19th Centuries. Boston, Mass: Museum of Fine Arts, 1985.
• Zebrowski, Mark. Gold, Silver & Bronze from Mughal India. London: Alexandria Press in association with Laurence King, 1997.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.