Naqshi Round Pedestal Table Black and Gold — Fancy

About this piece

Naqshi Round Pedestal Table Black and Gold — Fancy: the pedestal table with the denser pattern. Made by hand from sheesham (rosewood) and coloured lac and brass and finished in naqshi lac, the pattern scratched back through the colour, in the Sillanwali Handicrafts workshop in Sillanwali, Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan. It measures 16–18 in across. It costs PKR 5,500. It is ready to ship and delivered within 3 to 4 days anywhere in Pakistan, paid in cash on delivery.

The same round pedestal table carrying the finer of the two patterns: a densely cut black-and-gold top, a banded stem and a matching foot. Made in sixteen and eighteen inch. The difference between this and the standard table is bench time, and nothing else. Both are turned the same way on the khraad and lacquered the same way — a battī of coloured lac pressed against the spinning wood until friction melts it on, layer over layer. Both are cut back with the same tool, the sathrī. On the standard table the artisan leaves ground between the cut lines; here they are brought close enough that the gold reads as a continuous worked surface rather than as pattern on a black field. That takes several times as long at the lathe, demands a steadier hand because a slip shows against everything around it, and cannot be corrected once the lac is cut — the top has to be stripped and started again. That is the whole of the difference in price. Designs are cut from imagination rather than from a template or a transfer, which is why no two tops repeat. Black and gold also sits differently in a room from the coloured tops: formal rather than folk, and it works against dark furniture where a green or an orange top would fight. Made in Sillanwali, Sargodha. Dust with a soft dry cloth, keep water and polish sprays off the lac, and keep it out of direct sunlight.

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.