All about Pietra Dur

the one and only

The Taj Mahal’s resplendence has its admirers the world over. Every year, hordes of people descend upon the city of Agra to sample its finest offering, diving into tales three centuries old and living the beauty of the complex architectural achievements of the past. Tour guides in Agra frequently draw out the story of remembrance and loss in the seventeenth century Mughal dynasty that underlies this famous mausoleum. 

But it is in the by-lanes away from the Taj that one finds a close-knit set of workshops specifically for creating artworks modelled around the composite pietra dura style that makes the Taj such an artistic wonder. By defninition, this form of art requires working with hard stone and carving from scratch and by the sixteenth century in south Asia, ‘stone’ had come to mean marble, granite and precious stones. Originally Italian in form, the style of careful and sustainable inlay work work has passed through several transformations and every artistic hub of pietra dura work has its own singularities. In Agra the specific unique elements derive from a composite influence of Persian and Turkish architectural styles mixed with masonry from the upper Ganges delta which has worked for centuries now, spawning a whole market and production cycle for such marble work. White marble mines, abundant around Agra and otherwise sourced from neighbouring Rajasthan [see Makrana, Rajasthan] provide the raw material for the industry. 

Pietra Dura work done in italy

From Rome and Florence in the sixteenth century, the art form was mostly restricted to royal culture and luxurious commodities which were mostly gifted amongst nobility and hardly ever placed in public display. With the Taj, one sees a fabulous display of the art and craft of the pietra dura tradition, courtesy Shah Jahan and his 22,000 strong workforce led by famous Persian and Turkish architects. It is argued frequently, both in tourist books as well as by word of mouth in Agra, though historical work is scat in this regard, that most of the marble workers in Agra today are descendants of the original settling artisans who worked on the Taj.

Be that as it may, it is significant to know that in Agra per se, the methods of inlay work and styles of stone cutting have in fact not changed much. Parchinkari’s [the local word for pietra dura art] main processes consists of four crucial people – the Chaklawaala, the Ustad Fanahkaar, the Ghisaiyya and the Bharaiyya. The Chaklawaala is responsible for procuring marble and cutting it into usable slabs using his tools. It is with the Ustad or master that the process of inlay begins. The Ustad makes the designs, works with stencils and passes them on to the Ghisaiyya who is then tasked with the polishing of the stone, the carving out of inlay designs and other such things. The process ends with the Bharaiyya who performs the inlay as directed by the Ustad and lays the adhesion into proper place. The adhesive is a general mixture of wax, oil and lead oxide.

semi-precious stones against the grindwheel for the perfect shape

These techniques have lasted in the region for a very long time now and continue to rely, for most part, on the work of hands and not mechanised processes. The designs are so intricate that they may even take days to finish miniature animal statuettes. It is only in the recent past that these workers have got their due and seen gradual increases in market prices for their products. Since the craft itself requires a vast amount of experience, the apprenticeship period and the subsequent acclimatisation with the professional work routine often takes more than a decade. Simply working with an iron chisel under a Fanahkaar can take up to twelve years to master and even then, there are significant standards of creativity and excellence that different workshops compete over.

Precious and semi-precious stones and gems are crucial to the craft. The list includes lapis lazuli, malachite, cornelian, jasper, agnate, coral, turquoise and many others which are either acquired domestically or sometimes imported. The emery wheel or the chakla, as used by the chaklawaala, is what shapes and polishes the stones in order to bring out the required aesthetic qualities in them such as dispersion of light, radiance values and other such things.

the finished product

The work of the Bharaiyya can often be the most decisive component as the symmetry and polish of the final product mostly depends on his expert eyes and hands. He relies both on his skill independently as well as the original stencil or stain sheet created by the Ustad Fanahkaar which help in providing distinctive touches to the final product and make both the designer and the craftsman equally essential in the making of the finest Parchinkaari work.

While in recent times, exports of the marble products of Agra such as plates, boxes, decorative trays, paperweights and coasters have indeed seen some rise, the general life and everydayness of these workers and their workshops remains less considered. It is a most unique experience to spend a day simply discovering the inner practices of these workshops, giving special attention to those which do not have a lot of machines or mechanised production in order to see the way it is “really” done.