The lost wax method, still alive in a Jaipur workshop

Wax is carved before gold is poured. We spent a week at a Jaipur bench watching a single cascade take shape.

The model

The piece begins as a block of blue wax, cut with a scalpel and warmed with a needle. Nothing is rendered. The carver holds the finished necklace in his head.

The pour

The wax is invested in plaster, then burned out — hence lost wax. Molten 22K takes its place, filling a void the shape of a thought.

The bench

What comes out is dull, pitted and roughly right. Eleven pairs of hands then spend six weeks making it exact.