This small 1999 canvas comes from the Still Life series that first made Ahmad Zakii Anwar's name in the 1990s: spare arrangements of vessels and household objects against plain, ash-toned backgrounds. His training was in graphic design and advertising, which is where the controlled composition and lighting come from. The object here is a pewter-grey ewer with a long spout, its shape drawn from Islamic and Malay vessels, topped by a jewelled gold lid. Zakii treats it the way a portraitist treats a sitter: one object, one light source, a background that gives nothing away, built up in thin glazes until the metal looks solid and lit from within.