Thewa pendant
the object
Small, and deliberately smaller than the traditional size, so it can be worn with anything rather than kept for occasions. It sits flat against the skin and weighs almost nothing.
The scene is pierced through gold that has been worked down close to foil, then fused to the glass with heat. There is no adhesive and no setting behind the gold; the green you see through it is the glass it is bonded to.
The frame is silver, beaded by hand around the edge. Supplied without a chain, because the bail takes anything up to 2 mm.
- Dimensions
- 42 × 30 mm excluding the bail. Supplied without a chain.
- Material
- 23k gold sheet, coloured glass, silver
- Finish
- Gold fused to glass under heat. The silver frame is beaded by hand.
- Variation
- The scene is pierced freehand at a size where a slip cannot be repaired, so each one is finished or begun again.
- Lead time
- Five weeks.
the tradition
Thewa
Pratapgarh
Heated until the two fuse, so the glass shows through the gold.
A sheet of 23k gold is worked down until it is close to foil, and a scene is pierced through it, usually a hunt, a court, or a garden. It is then laid onto coloured glass and heated until the two fuse, so the glass shows through every opening in the gold.
One family in Pratapgarh has held the method since the eighteenth century, and the working details have never been published. The word for a maker of it is thewakar, and there have never been many.
the maker
Girish
Thewakar, 24 years, Pratapgarh.
He works the hunt scene smaller than the traditional size, so the pendant can be worn every day rather than kept for occasions.
This object is not yet for sale.
Join the list and we will write when the first collection opens. Once, and about that.
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