A rare 18th century dated colonial coconut bugbear flask by Henry Hill

A rare 18th century dated colonial coconut bugbear flask by Henry Hill, with a white metal mouthpiece, well carved in relief with a native climbing a palm tree, with a stag hunt with a man blowing a horn and with a 'Half Moon' tavern with mica windows and with a bugbear mask with mica eyes, inscribed 'Done by Henry Hill, Gheria Fort, July 4 1756', 13.3cm high, 8.3cm wide, together with an ebony handled and white metal ladle with a coconut bowl carved by the same hand with a stag hunt, 37.2cm long. (2)

Gheria (Vijaydurg) Fort, is the oldest fort on the Sindhudurg coast of Western India. In the 18th century it was the base for the Maratha chief, Tulaji Angria, who disrupted the trade of the East India Company by attacking its ships. In 1756 an expedition was led by Admiral Charles Watson and Lieut. Colonel Robert Clive and on the 7th February fourteen ships of war with a force of eight hundred British troops and one thousand Indians left Bombay. They arrived at Gheria on the 11th February and the firing started on the 12th. The fort was taken on the 4th March 1756. An account by the ship's surgeon Ives states 'They found in the fort 250 guns, ten lakhs of rupees in cash, six brass mortars and about four thousand pounds worth of goods and valuables'. It is conceivable that Henry Hill was a sailor on one of the fourteen ships that attacked Gheria Fort in 1756.