The thrones and State chairs used by the Moguls were rich with elaborate gilding; the legs or supports were sometimes of turned wood, with some of the members carved; the chair was formed like an hour glass, or rather like two bowls reversed, with the upper part extended to form a higher back to the seat.  In M. Racinet’s sumptuous work, “Le Costume Historique,” published in Paris in 20 volumes (1876), there are reproduced some old miniatures from the collection of M. Ambroise Didot.  These represent—­with all the advantages of the most highly finished printing in gold, silver, and colours—­portraits of these native sovereigns seated on their State chairs, with the umbrella, as a sign of royalty.  The panels and ornaments of the thrones are picked out with patterns of flowers, sometimes detached blossoms, sometimes the whole plant; the colors are generally bright red and green, while the ground of a panel or the back of a chair is in silver, with arabesque tracery, the rest of the chair being entirely gilt.  The couches are rectangular, with four turned and carved supports, some eight or ten inches high, and also gilt.  With the exception of small tables, which could be carried into the room by slaves, and used for the light refreshments customary to the country, there was no other furniture.  The ladies of the harem are represented as being seated on sumptuous carpets, and the walls are highly decorated with gold and silver and color, which seems very well suited to the arched openings, carved and gilt doors, and brilliant costumes of the occupants of these Indian palaces.

After the break up of the Mogul power, the influence of Holland, France, and England brought about a mixture of taste and design which, with the concurrent alterations in manners and customs, gradually led to the production of what is now known as the “Bombay furniture.”  The patient, minute carving of Indian design applied to utterly uncongenial Portuguese or French shapes of chairs and sofas, or to the familiar round or oval table, carved almost beyond recognition, are instances of this style.  One sees these occasionally in the house of an Anglo-Indian, who has employed native workmen to make some of this furniture for him, the European chairs and tables being given as models, while the details of the ornament have been left to native taste.

It is scarcely part of our subject to allude to the same kind of influence which has spoiled the quaint bizarre effect of native design and workmanship in silver, in jewellery, in carpets, embroideries, and in pottery, which was so manifest in the contributions sent to South Kensington at the Colonial Exhibition, 1886.  There are in the Indian Museum at South Kensington several examples of this Bombay furniture, and also some of Cingalese manufacture.

In the Jones Collection at South Kensington Museum, there are two carved ivory chairs and a table, the latter gilded, the former partly gilded, which are a portion of a set taken from Tippo Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam.  Warren Hastings brought them to England, and they were given to Queen Charlotte.  After her death the set was divided; Lord Londesborough purchased part of it, and this portion is now on loan at the Bethnal Green Museum.