My phone is almost drained of battery so that's all the pictures I will upload for now... it was bought in Kuwait apparently. Brass accoutrements are studded on to the front and sides over wood, the top has rivets for design. Beautiful red looking wood
It is a Middle Eastern dowry chest. It is a general style, and could have been made in Kuwait or ended up there through marriage or trade. A lot were also made in India and Pakistan. The use was not restricted to dowries, it is just a name. I'll wait for better pictures.
We also have a Turkish chest sitting a few feet away from it. I can tell which is which by the style of the Turkish chest although they are VERY similarly made(brass and wood with 3 drawers. The insides are different(Turkish chest has a large covered wood compartment that flips up if my memory is correct. Standby for pics of both chests
I'm really hoping to date these two chests. The Kuwaiti one arrived here from my Grandpas house in Maine, this year and was a much contested item on whose inheritance it would be, my mom or my aunt(moms brothers soon to be ex wife as they separated).. don't ask me why someone not related to our family would get it but apparently my grandpa almost gave that evil lady the chest after my mom had made it clear that was the ONE thing she wanted out of their one house. Well the good lord provided and here it sits. Along with +or- 80 other large old item she didn't ask for
Now for pictures of the smaller "Turkish" chest. Note the rivets on top are a virtually identical pattern to the other chest, and the way they are made is comparable &strikingly familiar
Could you go back to edit and click on full image? This one isn't Turkish in style. Just like the other one it is Middle Eastern/Indian/Pakistani made. Since most of the Middle East was once part of the Turkish Ottoman empire, this one could have ended up in Turkey.
The insides will hold clues as will the undersides and we can't see there. Of interest to me is the fact that neither chest has feet and both have 3 drawers on the bottom-very inconvenient. My wild guess is that they are both from the same place and may have been bought together. My guess at age would be related to the patina (or lack thereof) on the brass tacks. I doubt they were ever polished since there's no trace of polish around them. I'd guess they date from the mid-to-late 20th. C.
Hadn't even noticed that. Blurry pictures and thumbnails don't go well with a splitting headache. But a good thing you mentioned it, because that narrows the origin down considerably. The drawers on the bottom is the way most dowry chests from the Pakistan-Iran border region were made, mainly for export to East Africa. Many traders were Arab, so the chests ended up in the Arab world as well. You will find similar chests if you google Zanzibar chest, after the Arab influenced East African island where many ended up.
