Sedan chair, from an album of designs

This drawing belonged to an album that was used as a sample book by artists specializing in the production of luxury objects for wealthy clients. Such albums provided models for artists to follow and also guided clients, who could select individual elements from various pages to be used in custom-made designs. Surviving albums include designs for a variety of objects, from bejeweled daggers to elaborate elephant thrones like the one displayed against the opposite wall. In fact, decorative elements on this page-such as the winged lion with hornlike snout-also appear on the elephant throne, which is contemporary in date.

Extravagant furnishings of this type were designed in the early nineteenth century for the rulers of Avadh, a Mughal province in what is now Uttar Pradesh state. Their capital city of Lucknow seems to have been the production center for several design pages, like this one, that survive in collections around the world.

The paper on which this drawing was executed bears a watermark with the date 1882.