The Inlaid Table - 2

My father's inlaid table is now in our sitting room. It's a lovely piece and in beautiful condition, much used, and much-loved.

My mother had it valued when she lived in Hastings, probably in the 1980s, and the value was £225. Even allowing for inflation, it's not worth much but, like so many things, its value isn't in the marketplace but in the memories it brings with it.

I know nothing about these things but the workmanship seems superb. Inlaying what I take to be ivory or bone into wood cannot be easy, let alone when the surface is curved.

Other than that Grandfather Haylett bought it for Grandmother, we knew nothing of its provenance until, the other day, I turned it over. A small label on its underside declares that it was made by the OHRI Brothers in a place called Hoshiapur in India. A search on the internet finds a similar but octagonal occasional table dated to the 19th century, described as 'inlaid shisham', made of rosewood. It sold in the US for over $3,000.

Hoshiapur is in the Punjab, located well away from the coast, so how Grandfather came to buy the table is a bit of a mystery. Further, I didn't know that Grandfather's shipping lines - Scruttons at first, and then Harrisons - traded in Indian ports; in fact, I'm fairly sure they didn't. It's possible that he bought it in somewhere like Zanzibar, where a large Indian population might have imported pieces like this.