Isfahan, Iran
No production line, no printed patterns, no transfers. Rods cut by hand, surfaces laid by hand, miniatures painted by hand by our artists.
The claim that something is handmade is easy to write and hard to prove. So here is what actually happens between raw brass wire and a finished board. It takes longer than the industrial alternative, it costs more, and it produces objects that a machine cannot produce at any price. That is the whole argument for working this way.
In the Lamassu workshop every product is made by hand from beginning to end. Rods are planed by hand, bundles are tied and pressed by hand, slices are laid by hand, and surfaces are levelled and polished by hand. Powered tools are used to cut carcass timber to size, and for nothing that touches the pattern.
Every painted piece is painted per hand by our Künstler and Künstlerinnen. They work freehand with fine brushes, mixing their own colours, without stencils, transfers or printing. The women and men who paint here trained for years before their work was allowed onto a finished piece.
The day starts with material preparation: brass wire drawn to section, bone and timber planed into triangular rods of a precise size. If a rod is out by a fraction, the star will not close cleanly ten steps later, so this unglamorous stage decides the quality of everything that follows.
Rods are assembled into a bundle, bound, and glued under pressure. Once cured, the bundle is sliced into paper-thin sheets. Those sheets are then laid onto the prepared carcass, matched at the corners so the pattern runs continuously around the object.
The laid surface is levelled by hand until brass, bone and wood sit in one plane, then sealed and lacquered in several thin coats with curing time between them. The final polish is done by hand. Rushing the curing is the single most common way to ruin a good piece.
This is a small team of specialists rather than a large workforce: rod makers, layers, painters, finishers. Several have worked in this craft for decades, and the younger members learn the way the craft has always been taught, by sitting next to someone who is better than they are.
A simple accessory is a matter of days of actual work. A large painted board runs into weeks, spread over a longer calendar because lacquer cures on its own schedule. When we quote a lead time we are quoting the real one, including the waiting.
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.