Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/59

 is the art of encrusting one metal on another, not in crusta, which are soldered on or wedged into the metal surface to which they are applied, but in the form of wire, which by undercutting and hammering is thoroughly incorporated with the metal which it is intended to ornament. Practically, damas- cening is limited to encrusting gold wire, and sometimes silver wire, on the surface of iron, or steel, or bronze. This system of ornamentation is peculiarly Oriental, and takes its name from Damascus, where .it was carried to the highest perfection by the early goldsmiths. It is now practised with the greatest success in Persia and in Spain. In India damascening in gold is carried on chiefly in Cashmere, at Gujrat and Sialkote in the Pan jab, and also in the Nizam’s dominions, and is called kuft work. Damascening in silver is called bidri, from Bidar, in the Nizam’s Dominion, where it is principally produced. There is a cheap kuft work done by simply laying gold leaf on the steel plate, on which the ornamentation has been previously etched. The gold is easjly made to adhere to the etching, and is then wiped off the rest of the surface.

The spice box lent by the Queen, of which Plates 30 and 31 are illustrations, is one of the finest examples of the kuft work of the Panjab in the India Museum. Some beautiful examples of it will also be noted among the Museum collection of arms [Plates 40 and 42]. In bidri the metal ground is a compound of p