The Traveller's Chest — Tan Full-Grain Leather Suitcase Chest of Three Drawers, Brass Trunk Hardware, Jodhpur Craft

About this object

Three drawers. Each one wearing the face of a suitcase — brass trunk clasp, leather strap handle, hand-stitched panel seams, the faint ghost of a journey it never took but was always dressed for. This is the Traveller's Chest: a piece of furniture built entirely in the visual language of the great leather travel trunks of the colonial era, compressed into a bedside-height chest that earns its place in any room that takes objects seriously. Commissioned from a Jodhpur atelier that has supplied leather trunk furniture to five-star heritage hotels across Rajasthan — including two properties that bear the Taj flag. The exterior is full-grain vegetable-tanned leather, hand-stitched in the Jodhpur tradition — the same district that has been producing leather campaign furniture for export collectors and palace interiors for over a century. The construction is panel-built: each face, side, and top surface is a separate leather panel, edge-stitched and fitted over a solid wood carcass with the precision of a saddler, not a factory. The brass hardware is antique-finished — clasps, hinges, lock plates — and operates with the satisfying weight of real metal on real fittings. Use it as a bedside chest, a drinks cabinet, a study side table, or a statement object in an entrance hall. It arrives just unboxed, unmarked, and ready — a private order that arrived surplus to the original client's requirement. The piece has not been used, bearing original packaging and maker's documentation. Condition the leather every 3–4 months with quality beeswax or lanolin-based balm, and the brass hardware with gentle polishing to maintain its lustrous patina.