Sunburst Carved Two Door Cabinet in Pale Timber

In Rajasthan the sun is not just weather. The house of Mewar claims descent from it, the Surya medallion sits over doorways across the state and for a carver the radiating disc is the oldest exercise in the trade, a hundred rays cut evenly from a single centre, where any wobble shows. This cabinet carries six of them, three down each door, so whoever opens it in the morning faces six sunrises before the day has managed one.

The doors are the piece. Each panel holds its sunburst in a deep carved frame, rays fanning to the rim, a bud at the centre, the corners filled with small foliage so no flat space is left unworked. Down the stiles and across the rails run rows of iron studs, the dome-headed nails that old doors were built with and here they are structure as much as decoration.

A carved border runs the full outer edge under a plain moulded cornice, and the whole cabinet stands on a low plinth. The finish is pale and open, the timber left close to its natural colour and lightly whitened in the grain, which is what lets the carving read so cleanly, every ray throwing its own small shadow.

For the hallway that needs its first piece of real furniture, the bedroom going natural after years of dark wood or anyone who has stood under a haveli lintel and looked up at the sun carved there. Six suns on the front. The seventh is yours every morning.