Old Traditional Pitara, Metal Clad Dowry Chest

If the sanduk was the merchant's box, the pitara was the bride's. Every Rajasthani trousseau travelled in one, the saris folded in muslin, the silver wrapped in cloth, the things a mother sent with a daughter into a new house and the chest went with her to stand at the foot of the marriage bed for the rest of its life. It was built to be beautiful first and strong second, the opposite order from the sanduk, and you can read that priority all over this one.

The timber body is covered in a lattice of embossed metal strips, each one punched with a running pattern of dots and rosettes and beading, laid in a grid so the whole front reads as a quilt of small decorated panels and the lid carries the same work across its full width.

Time and a lime wash have turned the metal and the wood the same soft bone colour, with the embossing catching light along every ridge, so from across the room it reads as carved stone and up close it reveals itself as metalwork. Two hasp loops hang at the front where the padlocks once went, and the chest stands on a plinth with plain block feet, lifted just clear of the floor.