Tradition · papier-mâché & woodwork crafts · India
Srinagar papier-mâché and khatamband
Also known as papier mache Kashmir, kar-i-qalamdani, khatamband, Zain-ul-Abidin, Budshah
Two Srinagar crafts brought from Persia by way of the fifteenth-century Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin: papier-mâché, in which paper pulp is moulded, lacquered and painted in fine brushwork with chinar leaves and hunting scenes, and khatamband, the geometric interlocking ceiling of small deodar pieces cut to fit without nails or glue.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 34.090, 74.810
Worth knowing
Zain-ul-Abidin, whom Kashmiris call Budshah, sent craftsmen to Samarkand to learn and brought Persian masters back, and the shawl, the carpet, the papier-mâché and the woodwork all date their present form from his reign. A khatamband ceiling can be taken apart and reassembled elsewhere, which houseboats on the Dal have been doing for a century.
Connections (3)
- Craft tradition ofJamia Masjid, Srinagar
Papier-mâché, khatamband ceilings and the Jamia Masjid's three hundred and seventy deodar columns are all Kashmir working in what it has: paper, walnut and pine rather than stone. Zain-ul-Abidin sent craftsmen to Samarkand and brought Persian masters back in the fifteenth century, and the shawl, the carpet, the lacquer and the woodwork all date their present form from his reign.
- PatronageMughal Gardens of Kashmir
Zain-ul-Abidin sent craftsmen to Samarkand in the fifteenth century and brought Persian masters back, and the shawl, the carpet, the papier-mâché and the woodwork all date their present form from his reign; the Mughals then added the gardens two centuries later. Kashmir's crafts and its landscape design are both imports naturalised so completely that they now define the place.
- Site withinSrinagar
Papier-mâché and khatamband woodwork are the two Srinagar interior crafts — kar-i-qalamdani painted lacquer-work and the pyramidal interlocking cedarwood ceiling panels that line most of the old-city mosques. Both techniques came in with the fourteenth-century Persianate migration into Kashmir and are now almost entirely practised in a few lanes of downtown Srinagar.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Papier-mâché (Kashmiri handicraft)”. Jonaraja's continuation of the Rājataraṅgiṇī on Zain-ul-Abidin; Jammu and Kashmir handicrafts department records.
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