re 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.

The Queen has also amongst her numerous Jubilee presents some very
handsome ivory furniture of Indian workmanship, which may be seen at
Windsor Castle. These, however, as well as the Jones Collection examples,
though thoroughly Indian i