Meet the maker
The Inlay Workshops of Rajasthan
Hand-set bone & resin inlay
Cluster: Western Rajasthan
Inlay came to Rajasthan with Mughal artisans more than four centuries ago and settled into the royal workshops, particularly around Udaipur and Jodhpur, where courts commissioned inlaid furniture and architectural panels. Jodhpur's workshops have been refining it for something close to five hundred years.
The method has barely changed, which is the point. Bone — camel or buffalo, a by-product of the meat trade — is cut by hand into hundreds or thousands of small pieces, each one shaped individually. The pieces are set into a wooden carcass in a pattern drawn out in advance, the gaps are flooded with tinted resin, and the whole surface is then ground back flat and polished until bone and ground sit in one plane. Run a hand across a finished panel and you feel nothing; the pattern is entirely visual.
It is slow. A single large piece takes several weeks, and the setting stage cannot be hurried, because a piece placed a millimetre out will show once the surface is levelled. Patterns run to florals, geometrics and Mughal-derived motifs — the herringbone and the star being the two that survive best at small scale.
Most inlay work ends up on furniture, where the surface area justifies the labour. Smaller objects are harder to price sensibly, which is exactly why they are worth making: a photo frame or a small box puts the same technique within reach of someone who is never going to buy an inlaid sideboard.
We select finished pieces from inlay workshops across Rajasthan, and the bone is sourced as a documented by-product.
The method has barely changed, which is the point. Bone — camel or buffalo, a by-product of the meat trade — is cut by hand into hundreds or thousands of small pieces, each one shaped individually. The pieces are set into a wooden carcass in a pattern drawn out in advance, the gaps are flooded with tinted resin, and the whole surface is then ground back flat and polished until bone and ground sit in one plane. Run a hand across a finished panel and you feel nothing; the pattern is entirely visual.
It is slow. A single large piece takes several weeks, and the setting stage cannot be hurried, because a piece placed a millimetre out will show once the surface is levelled. Patterns run to florals, geometrics and Mughal-derived motifs — the herringbone and the star being the two that survive best at small scale.
Most inlay work ends up on furniture, where the surface area justifies the labour. Smaller objects are harder to price sensibly, which is exactly why they are worth making: a photo frame or a small box puts the same technique within reach of someone who is never going to buy an inlaid sideboard.
We select finished pieces from inlay workshops across Rajasthan, and the bone is sourced as a documented by-product.