Oku Bahal Shilpa

Oku Bahal is the statue-makers' quarter of Patan, and the families working metal in the lanes around the Rudravarna courtyard have been doing it since the Malla kings. This workshop runs four artisans and takes about three weeks over a nine-inch casting. Most of those three weeks go into the face. A casting comes out of the broken mould soft and approximate; everything that makes it worth looking at happens afterwards, with a punch and a chisel barely wider than a needle. Oku Bahal works almost entirely in oxidized copper for that reason — it is the finish that shows chasing, where gilding softens it. If you want to see what the workshop is actually good at, look at the eyes on any of its Taras, and then look at the same figure anywhere else.