Silver Presentation Box with Shellac Record

CultureIndian

Date1940

MediumSilver and shellac

DimensionsOverall (box): 2 1/2 × 11 1/8 inches (6.35 × 28.26 cm)
Overall (record): 9 3/4 inches (24.77 cm)

Credit LineProposed: Purchase: Sickman Fund for Asian Art

Object number2024.52.1,2

On View

Not on view

Collections

South and Southeast Asian Art

Terms

DescriptionA circular presentation case with a heavy-gauge silver sidewall and hinged lid. Inside the box is an orange velvet-lined well that held a ten-inch shellac record. The lid has a pleated yellow satin card-backed liner with purple velvet centre button and surrounding twisted cord.

The top of the lid is decorated in with village scenes rendered in relief depicting “Calcutta Style” imagery of rural Bengali life, including: of a heavily laden Bullock Cart, Ladies Bathing, a Man Chopping Wood and a Man Ploughing with two Bullocks. The scenes are chased within a plain border and surround a plain central circular cartouche, edged with a chased ropework design and engraved with dedication. The side rim of the lid is also engraved, with the names of the nine All India Radio Stations then operating, and the signature of the corresponding Station Director is engraved on the case sidewall below each station name. There are no silver control marks applied.

The inscription on the box lid reads:
“Presented To Lionel Fielden Esqr. // Controller Of Broadcasting. // 1935 – 1940 // By The Station Directors // All India Radio”

The ’10-inch’ (25 cm) shellac record is cut on both sides and has a central label with the All India Radio logo and annotation “Manufactured by the National Gramophone Record Mfg. Co. Ltd. Bombay”. Both sides, each playing for 3½ minutes, carry a recording of the iconic AIR repeating signature tune played continuously by each station when not transmitting a programme, enabling the signal to be tuned into by listeners and identified as AIR at a time before radios had pre-marked tuning guides.

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