Blue Table & Candy Jar Set

About this piece

Blue Table & Candy Jar Set — an 18 inch table with two matching jars. Made by hand from sheesham (rosewood) and coloured lac and finished in naqshi lac, the pattern scratched back through the colour, in the Sillanwali Handicrafts workshop in Sillanwali, Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan. It measures 18 in table, 5 in and 6 in jars. It costs PKR 14,000. It is ready to ship and delivered within 3 to 4 days anywhere in Pakistan, paid in cash on delivery.

An eighteen inch blue naqshi table sold with two lidded jars, one five inch and one six inch, finished in the same colour and the same pattern. Buying the three together is the point. Lac is mixed and laid on in batches, and the pattern is scratched back freehand, so a table and a jar made months apart will differ in the depth of the blue and the weight of the line. Worked in one run by one pair of hands, they actually match. The table is turned on the khraad and the lac is melted on by friction while it spins, then cut back through with the sathrī, the iron tool that opens the furrow to open up the pattern; the jars are turned and worked the same way, down to the finials on their lids. The jars hold sweets, dry fruit or mithai and sit on the table they came with, so a corner of a room gets a surface and something worth putting on it in one go. It is the set people buy for a wedding house or a new drawing room. Made in Sillanwali, Sargodha. Every set is painted individually, so the trees of pattern fall differently on each one. Dust with a soft dry cloth, keep water and polish sprays off the lac, and keep it out of direct sunlight so the blue stays true. A name or a nikkah date can be worked into the border of the table on request.

Every piece is made by hand, so the wood grain, carving and colour vary a little from the photo. That variation is normal and is what makes each one its own.