Iron box with hammered silver inlay

This is interesting, but I can't pin down a region. It doesn't look like any of the typical inlaid iron boxes you usually see (Korean, Japanese, Persian). The motifs on the front are Mid East looking, but there isn't much else to go on, (although is that possibly Arabic lower right of front pic?). Lock style is odd with a rolling latch which must just hold a latch bar out the way at the right point allowing opening/closing (springs back shut). Lock seems late 19thC.

It's made of blackened iron, inlay is sterling or better. Heavy, suitable as a small strong box, about 20cm across. Thoughts?

 

double lock , fortified lid...... strong box fits the bill...imo

 

Koftgari inlay used in a number of countries from India to middle east.

 

I really love it !

 

Yes it's definitely that form of inlay, but the box isn't the usual form, if it didn't have any inlay I'd had thought it were perhaps French or English.

 

The scroll design on the back looks very Indonesian, and the box looks somewhat similar to locking betel nut boxes from that area. Given the coffee/tea pots and cups on the front, I wonder if it was designed for storing such commodities.

 

Lower right and left. Should be legible to someone.

May we have a pic of the exterior bottom?

 

This was my Maternal Grandfather's. It came to America in 1924 from Holland, aboard the SS Rotterdam (1908–1940), crammed with Dutch guilders...his life savings. ~5½"W X 3⅝"D X 2¾"H outside dimensions. It is absolutely without external decoration or finish; the sheet iron on the bottom still shows blue mill-scale. The unusual way it latches, including the spring-closing bar, seems to be the same as yours.

 

strikingly similar...

 

Might @Any Jewelry have an opinion?

 

I can only hope.

 

That is indeed remarkably similar, just a little smaller. The base on mine is a flat piece of iron with dovetail looking joins around the edge, largely obscured by blackening and some rust. No numbers.

So now the question is whether the boxes came into Europe from the East, some undecorated, some decorated. Or the boxes were European and sent out to the East where they were decorated.

 

We used to have a similar strongbox at home.

Funny enough, that design is called 'Olanda' in Balinese, thought to be from the Portuguese word for Holland. The design is traditional Indonesian, but is also used in the Netherlands. It may have looked Dutch to the Portuguese.

It is a mystery to me, but I agree, it could have a Dutch-Asian connection. In which case it would have come from the Netherlands and been decorated in Asia.
The teapots look Persian in style, the shape is used in much of Asia. Maybe it was once owned by a tea planter?
The abundant flower vase looks like the Javanese and Madurese version of the Hindu Kalpataru tree, which can fulfill wishes and stands for beauty and riches. If the box has a connection to Java or Madura, the vase could refer to the riches inside.

Kalpataru vases on a lion gate relief on the 10th century Javanese Prambanan temple complex:

 

Pretty ordinary box. I have half a dozen. Probably available from late 19th to early 20th century shops around the world. What is different is the decoration, which makes me think someone got a box and had it done by a local artisan. You might have a point as to origin, as AJ says. Not Portuguese or Spanish--not excessive enough. The bottom of the front looks like script of some sort to me. Arabic?