Vintage Indo-Persian Engraved Steel Apple Fruit

This is a wonderful piece of decorative Indo Persian metalwork, a hand engraved steel apple in the Qajar tradition. Persian and Indian metalworkers made these sculptural fruits in engraved steel as ornaments for the home, and the type is well documented, with related examples held in the National Museum of Iran. The auction house we bought it from described the decoration as Indo Persian, and you can see why, the round body is worked all over with freehand birds, blossoms and scrolling foliage in that distinctive Eastern hand.

We would call it vintage or antique rather than pin it to a single year, since these fruits were made across a long span and the earlier and later pieces look much alike. What is not in doubt is the age and the hand work. Years have given the steel a deep smoky patina, near black in the hollows and lifting to soft pewter on the high points, with warm flecks of rust where the bare metal shows through, a finish no reproduction can copy. A curled hooked stem and a spray of cut leaves with serrated edges complete it.

It measures 14 x 14 cm and has a satisfying weight in the hand, so it holds its own wherever you set it. We love a piece like this for the history and intrigue it brings to a room. Stand it on a stack of antiquarian books, group it with aged metals and stoneware for a still life with a collected feel, or let it sit alone on a mantel or console where the engraving and splayed leaves can be admired from every angle. It also makes a brilliant, slightly unexpected paperweight for a desk or study.

There is honest age and wear here, with surface pitting, patina and light rust in keeping with its years. To our eye it only deepens the charm, and we would simply keep it somewhere dry to preserve the surface.

A characterful engraved steel apple with real Eastern soul, ready for its next shelf.