Every piece, a love story
Hand-painted jewelry box with traditional Kashmiri floral motifs.
A stunning jewelry box hand-painted by master artisans with traditional Kashmiri floral motifs in rich saffron, deep green, and ivory. Features multiple compartments and a velvet-lined interior.
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GI-Tagged · Kashmir Handicrafts Board
GI-tagged · Kashmir Handicrafts Board
Ships worldwide in 2–3 business days, insured and gift-boxed. Returns are accepted within 30 days of delivery in original condition.
Avoid moisture — do not wipe with wet cloth or expose to rain. Papier-mâché weakens when wet.
Avoid direct sunlight — prolonged UV exposure fades the hand-painted pigments and dulls the lacquer.
Dust with a dry soft cloth — never use chemical cleaners or abrasives on the lacquer surface.
Mohammad Yusuf Bhat was born into a family of Naqashi painters in the old quarter of Srinagar, where the smell of lacquer and linseed oil is as familiar as morning bread. At the age of nine he began watching his father trace the first outlines of a chinar leaf onto a raw papier-mâché blank — and by twelve he was finishing the borders himself.
Today, more than three decades later, Yusuf still works at the same low wooden table, seated cross-legged with a lamp angled close. He paints entirely by hand using brushes he makes himself — the finest tipped with a single squirrel hair — and mixes his own pigments from mineral powders that he sources from the same supplier his grandfather used. A single jewelry box can take four to six days to complete.
"The pattern is never the same twice," he says. "The hand remembers, but the eye always finds something new." It is this quality — the living variation that no machine can replicate — that makes each Naqeshi piece a singular object in the world.
Mohammad Yusuf Bhat
Master Naqash · 34 years at the bench
The repeating flower-and-vine lattice, locally called gulkari, recreates the Mughal gardens of Srinagar in miniature — a tradition carried from textile to papier-mâché over four centuries.
Each lattice is built from dozens of near-identical strokes, repeated until the rhythm is unbroken. Naqash families consider an even, unhurried hand the first mark of a trained painter.
Floral-motif boxes are traditionally gifted at weddings and births in Kashmir — the unbroken pattern read as a wish for an unbroken, flourishing life.
4.5
2 reviews
Absolutely stunning — better than the photos
I ordered this as a wedding anniversary gift for my wife and she was speechless. The floral paintwork is incredibly detailed — you can see individual brushstrokes up close. The box feels solid and the lacquer finish is smooth. Arrived beautifully packaged. Will definitely order again.
