Hand-cast Buddhist statues from Nepal
Featured
One of one
Masterpiece commissions
Eleven months, three artisans, signed underneath. When it sells, there is not another.
Under NPR 65,000
Small pieces, same workshop
Shrine-sized castings from the artisans who make the large ones.
Browse by
Figure, finish, budget
Three ways into the catalogue. The numbers are what is published right now.
Just arrived
New from the workshops
Reduced
One of a kind
Most wanted
What people are buying
- Reduced
Lost-wax casting
How a statue is made
Six stages, in the order they happen. One of them destroys the mould, which is why this catalogue has no two of anything.
01
The wax model
The figure is built up in beeswax over a clay core, full size and in full detail. Every proportion the finished piece will have is settled here, in a material that softens in a warm room.
02
The mould
Fine river clay is packed around the wax in thin layers and left to dry in the shade. Dried too quickly it cracks, and the model inside it is already gone.
03
The firing
The mould goes into the fire and the wax runs out of it, leaving a cavity the exact shape of the model — down to a fingernail.
04
The pour
Molten copper alloy is poured into the cavity and left to cool. What comes out is one piece, not parts joined together afterwards.
05
The break
The mould has to be broken to get the casting out. That is why no two pieces are identical, and why a repeat order is a different object rather than another copy of the same one.
06
The chasing
The face, the eyes, the fingers and the ornament are cut in by hand with punches — most of the labour on a small figure. On a fire-gilt piece, gold dissolved in mercury is then painted on and fired until only the gold is left.
What to expect
The maker is named
Every piece is listed under the workshop that made it, and that workshop is paid directly.
Meet the makersOne of a kind
The mould is broken to release each casting, so no two are identical. The variation is the evidence, not a defect.
See howCash on delivery
Pay the courier when it arrives, or by wallet or bank transfer. Nothing is charged up front.
How delivery works
Journal
From the workshop
2 min read
Which figure is which
Most of the statues in this catalogue can be identified from across a room, once you know that the hands are doing the talking.
2 min read
Fire-gilding, and how to tell it from plating
Both look like gold on the day you buy. One of them is still gold in twenty years, and the wear pattern usually tells you which.
2 min read
What oxidized actually means
The dark finish is not an absence of gold. It is a deliberate surface, and it is the one that shows the chasing best.