Europe and America recognise the artistic skill of the goldsmiths and silversmiths of India ; also that of ivory carvers of Travancore and China, and that of the lacquer workers among the Shans of Burma, China, and Japan ; the enamellers of Jeypore, the koftgari inlayers of the Panjab, and the tutanague inlayers of Beder. The pith models of Madura are much admired, as likewise have been the horn and woodwork armour, horse and elephant trappings of India. These and much of the loom-work hold their own among the people.
In the N.N. of India, in the vicinity of the Himalaya, blanketing, called loee, is made of red and white patterns at Bulrampore, Muzaffar nagar, Rampur, and Gujerat. The Rampur chadar is well known in Britain for the remarkable warmth, lightness, and softness of its texture. It is said to be made of pashm wool.
The namad or namda felts are largely made in all the western parts of India, also in Sind and Baluchistan. Throughout the greater part of India, every agricultural labourer has a cumbli or coarse blanket. The usual mode of wearing them is to bring the two corners together, one overlapping the other, and the end being tucked under, thus forming a hood is placed over the bead, and protects the shoulders and the body in the day, and at night they are converted into bedding, one-half doing duty as a mattress, the other as a blanket or covering. The puttoo, woollen fabric of Kabul, is made from the under hair of goats, and when old is re-made into malida, a mixed woollen fabric.
The refined art of India is to be seen in its silver work, filigree or gilt, chased or engraved.. Its koftgari work of iron or steel, inlaid or other , wise ornamented with gold, is mostly produced in the Panjab • also the Dekhan, Beder, and other work inlaid with silver.
Mr. Pollen describes the goldsmiths' work as precisely similar, in many forms, to the old Etruscan goldsmiths' work as it has been recovered for us from tombs in Italy and elsewhere. The methods of working gold, now lost in Europe, are still in full use in parts of India ; particularly that of fretting gold by soldering fine spines or hairs of gold wire as delicate in fact as thistle down, yet done by unscientific workmen pos sessed of certain chemical secrets, which they put into practice by traditional usages. Koftgari work is iron chased with a tool, into which soft gold, very 'pure, is afterwards hammered, the rough iron taking, by this means, permanent hold on the softer metal, which gets beaten into the fine scratches and hollows. The most impos
ing use of this material is in the decoration of arms and armour. It is also used to decorate buckles, clasps, work-boxes caskets, arms, head pieces, sword - blades, sword - hilts, and various \ small objects for European use.
Baroda artisans also ornament iron and steel by hammering in gold, not as in the koftgari, but in discs or masses, polishing afterwards in the lathe.
Cutch and Ahmadabad is famed for its rqoussd work.
The inlaid work of Beder is usually silver, sometimes gold, inlaid on a black amalgam in bold, flat patterns; sometimes seemingly it is of pure tin, which has all the display of silver. The bedri work of Beder is applied largely to the domestic utensils in use by the people, except where Europeans give special orders. It is of black metal (an amalgam), inlaid with silver and gold, in bold, flat patterns. It is made by casting the vases ; the core is first formed, then a vase of wax is formed round it, and a mould over that. The wax is melted out through holes made on purpose, and this leaves a mould for the vase. When the vessel is cold, it is chased or roughed out in designs, and the soft silver or gold gently hammered into it.
The goldsmiths' and jewelled productions of India are minute in an extraordinary degree, of elaborate handiwork, obtainable only where labour is cheap. In the enamels of Jeypore, for example, gold itself is completely invested with enamel colours, some of them encrusted with precious stones. For translucent enamels, that is, enamel colours painted on gold (generally), or gold-leaf, which gives light and splendour to the colours, Jeypore is the finest school. A shield of rhino ceros hide, decorated with a border and bosses of this translucent enamel, was sent from Cuteh to the Exhibition of 1851.
Brass and gilt basins are covered with a diaper of ornament. Brass work of Moradabad, Jeypore, and Nagpur has the body of the work in brass, and pure tin is hammered over it, leaving spaces of the ground as ornament. The polished surface of the tin is so white and bright as to have the appearance of silver of plain manufacture.