Made by
Showkat Ahmad Bhat
Papier-mâché and walnut wood · Zadibal, Srinagar, Kashmir · 22 years
Builds papier-mâché forms and carves walnut in the same two-room workshop.
Walnut Serving Tray
Cut from a single board of Kashmiri walnut and finished with oil, with a shallow chinar carving at the rim.
₹5,60040 × 28 cm · Kashmiri walnut
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This piece
Juglans regia grown in the valley is close-grained and dark enough to need no stain. Each tray is cut from one board, hand-planed, carved at the rim with a chinar motif, and finished with oil rather than lacquer so it can be re-oiled at home.
Showkat works both crafts that Srinagar is known for indoors: sakhtsazi, the building of forms from paper pulp, and walnut carving. The painting on his boxes is done by a naqash with a squirrel-hair brush and ground pigment, then lacquered in four to six sanded layers. His walnut trays are cut from a single board and finished in oil so they can be re-oiled at home.
What's inside
- Weight
- 40 × 28 cm · Kashmiri walnut
- Lot record
- Issued when the lot is made
- Availability
- Short runs, 2027
Care & use
Air the piece rather than washing it. Fold with acid-free tissue and keep it dry and out of direct light; for pashmina, dry-clean only, and rarely. Hand-made work settles with use — small irregularities are the record of the hand that made it, not a fault.