Collection
Panels, decorative pieces and restoration work — khatam-kari where the marquetry is not the frame but the subject.
Khatam-kari has been made in Isfahan for roughly five centuries. It survives because it cannot be faked convincingly: the pattern goes all the way through the material, so a chipped edge reveals more pattern rather than a printed layer over plywood. This collection is for pieces where that fact is the whole point.
Triangular rods of brass, bone and coloured wood are planed to an exact section and bound into a bundle whose end grain forms a six-pointed star. The bundle is glued under pressure, then sliced across the grain into sheets under a millimetre thick. Every sheet carries the complete pattern.
The shesh is the base unit of the whole craft, and the variations come from how many stars are combined, how they are rotated, and which materials fall where. What looks like an infinitely complex surface is a small number of decisions, repeated with absolute discipline.
Brass gives the gold lines, camel bone the white, ebony and jujube the darks, and betel and walnut the warm mid-tones. No dye is used to fake a colour that the material does not have — which is why old khatam ages gracefully instead of fading unevenly.
We make flat panels for framing, for inset into furniture and joinery, and for wall installation. Panels can be made to a specified dimension, and for architectural work we will supply a sample of the exact pattern before the full run is cut.
Bowls, stands, obelisks, clock faces and sculptural pieces where the marquetry wraps a three-dimensional form. Curved work is considerably slower than flat work, because each sheet has to be persuaded around the form without cracking the pattern.
Marquetry borders are often combined with a hand-painted centre or with a silver or mother-of-pearl relief. The combination is traditional, but it doubles the number of hands involved, and every join between two techniques has to be planned before either is started.
We repair older khatam pieces: lifted slices, missing sections, failed hinges and dulled lacquer. Send photographs and measurements first. We will say plainly when a piece is worth restoring and when the honest answer is that it is not.
Tell us what you are looking for — quantities, sizes and timing if you already know them. We reply to every enquiry within two working days.