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For most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Swansea was the most important copper smelting area in the world. This smelted copper was exported to all parts of the world. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, exports to India via the British East India Company were very important. In India, British copper was used in the manufacture of brass decorative objects. Some of these were made for export back to Britain and are known in the antiques trade as 'Benares Brass', named after an important Indian city. This late nineteenth century or early twentieth century brass bowl is decorated in a traditional Indian style and is thought to have been made in India, from copper smelted in Wales.