In India, almost every piece of pre-Nineteenth Century silver was later melted down to make something else.

“Almost” is the key word.

What pre-Nineteenth Century silver that does remain today offers a rare and remarkable look at the techniques, ornaments and shapes employed by silversmiths and who worked for India’s great royal houses during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

With its purchase recently of 21 such works, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts collection of early Indian silver has been catapulted into the top position in North America.

The objects range from a whimsical yet elegant container for rose-scented water to be sprinkled on guests after an elaborate meal and a spectacular scabbard for a dagger, to two opulent flywhisks emblematic of monarchical authority and striking examples of court jewelry worn to indicate status.

The objects were purchased by the board of trustees through the museum’s Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund.

The trustees also approved the purchase of a 1938 painting, “Spring Song,” by American artist Paul Sample (1896-1974) – “a Depression-era allegory of the senses,” according to Michael Brand, director of VMFA.

Sample, who was a member of the American scene movement, used his friend, Boston Herald columnist Bill Cunningham, as the model for the pianist in the oil on canvas, which depicts him and a bartender in the intensely masculine setting of a small-town bar.

The museum’s trustees accepted a significant collection of Asian art, including Chinese jades, as a gift from longtime supporters John C. Maxwell, Jr, and Adrienne L. Maxwell of Richmond. The 31 jades cover a historical period reaching as far back as five millennia.

One of the earliest is a Neolithic nephrite carving, known as a bi, that would have been used in burials and may date to 3300-2250 BC. Also in the Maxwell collection are a small, delicate ceremonial blade from the Shang dynasty, circa 1500-1050 BC and an ornament depicting a bird reminiscent of Chinese patterns found in the Western Zhou era (circa 1100-770 BC). Two later stone carvings from the Song dynasty (960-1279), fragments of Buddhist sculpture, depict the heads of monks and a tradition of idealized portraiture is reflected in a small silver burial mask from the Liao dynasty (916-1125). Rounding out the gift are a variety of implements used in the raising of fighting crickets, all from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

Using funds bequeathed by Kathleen Leigh Williams Harwell of Danville, the trustees purchased five Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century prints – two by Theodore Gericault (French, 1791-1824) and one each by Giovanni Antonio Canal (called Canaletto) (Italian, 1697-1768), Eugene Delacroix (French, 1798-1863) and Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916).

Three black and white photographs by social welfare photographer Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) were accepted as gifts from Betty Stuart Goldsmith Halberstadt and Jon Halberstadt of Christiansburg. Hine was known for his dignified and respectful portraits of newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, for his seminal work in documenting injustices of child labor practices in the early Twentieth Century and for documenting the construction of the Empire State Building.

“Vegetables,” a 1938 hand colored lithograph by American scene artist Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942), was accepted as a gift from Virginia Brown of Waynesboro in memory of her husband, Charles L. Brown, Jr.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is at 2800 Grove Avenue. For information, 804-204-2700 or vmfa.state.va.us.