Shakya Atelier

A family workshop in Patan and one of the few left in the valley that still fire-gilds. Gold is dissolved in mercury, painted onto the copper, and the statue is heated until the mercury drives off and leaves pure gold bonded to the surface. It is slow and it is hazardous, which is why most workshops electroplate instead. The difference is not visible on the day you buy — it is visible twenty years later, at the edges, where plating has worn through to the copper and fired gold has not. Shakya Atelier also paints faces and sets turquoise, so its pieces are the most ornamented in the catalogue and the ones that take longest.