Home Decor

Almost everything here is brass, worked by hand, with a smaller run of enamelled pieces in the meenakari technique and some natural stone. That is the short version: metal objects made by people who have been making them a very long time.

Showpieces and table decor

The largest part of the collection and the usual entry point. Brass showpieces sit on a console, a sideboard, a mandir shelf or a desk, and the appeal is that they age rather than date. Solid brass develops a patina over years, and you can polish it back or leave it. Either is a legitimate choice. Browse showpieces for the living room.

Elephants, horses and animal statues

Elephants are the most asked for by a wide margin, usually as a pair with trunks raised, followed by Kamdhenu cows and horses. Pairs are conventionally placed facing into the room at an entrance. In the iconography the elephant connects to rain and through rain to abundance, which is a traditional association rather than a claim we would make for you. See brass elephant and animal statues.

Wall hangings and torans

Brass on a wall behaves differently from brass on a table. It catches light from one angle only, so placement near a window or a lamp matters more than size. Our hanging pieces cover wall panels and door hangings, the latter closer to the traditional toran or bandanwar hung above a doorway at Diwali and for a new home. See wall decor and wall hangings.

Urlis

A wide shallow bell-metal bowl, originally a Kerala cooking and Ayurvedic vessel long before it was decor, and still used in the Vishukkani arrangement at new year. Fill it with water, floating flowers and tealights and put it at an entrance. Among the most given housewarming pieces in India. See brass urli bowls.

Vastu and feng shui pieces

Vastu Shastra is a documented body of Indian architectural theory with a real textual lineage; feng shui is a documented Chinese spatial practice. Both are genuine traditions, and the forms associated with them, the tortoise, the Kamdhenu cow, the elephant pair, the horse, are genuine parts of them.

What we will not do is tell you what one will do for you. Plenty of sellers promise wealth, luck, protection or health from a brass object. We would rather describe where a piece sits in the tradition and let you decide what it means. See vastu decor.

Crystal trees

The same applies, more so. Natural stone pieces are decorative objects with long-standing cultural associations, and that is how we describe them. We make no health claims about them and would treat any seller who does with caution. See crystal trees.

Meenakari

The Jaipur enamel tradition: coloured enamel worked into engraved metal, fired, then polished back. Among the most labour-intensive finishes we sell and the most fragile, so meenakari should only ever be wiped dry, never scrubbed and never cleaned with a paste. See the meenakari collection.

Small and portable pieces

Pocket temples and travel mandirs hold a deity inside a small closed shrine, made for a bag, a desk drawer or a hotel room. Car dashboard idols are sized and weighted for a vehicle, which is a genuinely different design problem from a shelf piece.

Caring for brass

Brass darkens. That is copper oxidising at the surface, not damage, and the metal underneath is unaffected. Lemon and salt or soaked tamarind lifts it; rinse, then dry completely, because trapped moisture is what dulls it again within a week. Deep clean occasionally rather than often, since the pastes are mildly abrasive and repeated cleaning wears fine detail away permanently.

Three exceptions. Lacquered pieces take a dry cloth only, because an acidic cleaner attacks the seal rather than the tarnish. Antique finish pieces carry a patina applied on purpose, so cleaning paste strips the finish it was meant to restore. And meenakari enamel is wipe-dry only.

Telling solid brass from plated

Two quick checks, useful in a shop as well as at home. Solid brass is heavy for its size, noticeably heavier than plated resin or a hollow alloy piece of the same dimensions. And it rings: tap it and solid brass gives a sustained note where plated resin gives a dull knock. Our product pages state the material outright, and where a piece is plated rather than solid we say so.

As a gift

Brass is the default Indian gifting metal because it is durable, it does not date, and it becomes an heirloom rather than clutter. For a new home, urlis, diyas and Lakshmi Ganesh pieces are the conventional choices; see griha pravesh and housewarming gifts. For weddings, wedding gifts and wedding return gifts, where small brass pieces are the usual return-gift convention. Diwali is the seasonal peak for torans, diyas and wall pieces; see Diwali gifts and Dhanteras gifts. For volume, corporate gifts, bulk gift items, or the bulk order enquiry page.

Furnishing a mandir rather than a room? The lamps, thalis and chowkis are in pooja essentials, and the deities in god idols and figurines, brass idols and gold and silver plated idols.

Before you order

• Photographs flatten scale badly on decorative pieces. Work from the listed numbers.
• Confirm solid brass or plated. Both are legitimate and they age completely differently.
• Wall pieces need light from one side. Think about where the lamp is.
• Meenakari and antique finishes are wipe-dry only, never a cleaning paste.
• For a gift, brass needs no upkeep from the recipient to look right on the day.