Silver barudan flask engraved with the arms of Bhopal State, North India, late 19th - early 20th century Nautilus-shaped powder flask with bulbous lid attached to the body by a chain. In silver, decorated with a cast frieze of palmettes on the lid and under the opening, the second frieze enhanced with cabochons of red glass paste. The body is engraved with a coat of arms featuring a tower surrounded by a frieze of twelve stars, the shield flanked on either side by a fish and crowned with a fleur-de-lys. Below, a banner engraved in Arabic with the religious formula "Nasrun min Allah" ("Victory through God"). Length: 16 cm; gross weight: 402 g Small scratches, traces of oxidation, chain probably replaced and secured with a wire. The coat of arms engraved on the body of this object is that of the Indian princely state of Bhopal in the Madhya Pradesh region, more precisely that of Sultan Shah Jahan Begum, a female nawab who ruled from 1868 to 1901. The tower in the center recalls an emblematic monument of the state, while the twelve stars surrounding it represent the twelve Imams of Shiite Islam that the nawab worshipped. The fish (machli (f.) in Hindi) are a choice by the begum to show, through the use of an animal with a feminine name, the ancestry of women. They also allude to the Mahi Maratib, an honor received by Yar Mohammad, son of the founder of Bhopal, from the Nizam. Bibliography : PEREIRA, Harold B., 'Indian Heraldry', in The Coat of Arms, n°62, April 1965, pp. 240-243.