Khatam-kari

 

Delicate and meticulous marquetry, produced since the Safavide period: at this time, khatam was so popular in the court that princes learned this technique at the same level of music or painting. In the 18th and 19th centuries, katahm declined, before being stimulated under the Reign of Reza Shah, with the creation of craft schools in Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. “Khatam” means “incrustation”, and “Khatam-kari”, “incrustation work”. This craft consists in the production of incrustation patterns (generally star shapped), with thin sticks of wood (ebony, teak, ziziphus, orange, rose), brass (for golden parts), camel bones (white parts). Ivory, gold or silver can also be used for collection objects. Sticks are assembled in trinagular beams, themselves assembeled and glued in a strict order to create a 70cm diameter cylinder, which section is the main motif: a six-branch star included in a hexagon. These cylinders are cut into shorter cylinders, and then compressed and dried between two wooden plates, before being cut for the last time, in 1mm wide tranches. So this section is ready to be plated and glued on the object to be decorated, before lacquer finishing. The tranche can also be heaten to be soften to follow curves of a rounded object. Many objects can be so decorated, such as: boxes, chessboards, cadres, pipes, desks or some musical instruments. Katham can be used on Persian miniature, realising true work of art.

 

Coming from techniques imported from China and improved by Persian know-how, this craft existed for more than 700 years and is still perennial in Isfahan and Shiraz.

Click on images to see them Larger