History of Art

Our authentic statue making process

According to the ancient method for Buddha statue, firstly we create a perfect masterpiece of hand carved wax replica of the statue. This is the very difficult and hardworking process. Only few talented artisan’s makes this type of authentical masterpiece. After the wax replica is done, water mixed with cow dung that has been filtered and mixded with soil water is then applied two times, each time left to dry first. Nails are hammered in to secure the model.

Afterwards, the model is carefully coating with a mixture of special clay and chaff then model is allowed to dry which creates a hardened cast around the wax sculpture. The wax is then melted and allowed to drain out through a hole in the bottom of the cast. After the cast has been completely drained of wax the next step is melting metal such as copper, brass and pouring the hot molten metal into the mold which took the original shape of the sculpture which is called Dhale yagu in Newari language. Then sculpture is allowed to cool for a few hours. Once the metal has cooled and solified, next step is carefully cracked and pulled away to reveal an authentic Buddha statue in unfinished foam. Over time, the metal naturally and permanently hardens to foam a unique and expressive sculpture.

The next step is cleaning the statue, removing any mold lines and hand carving beautiful designs and adding finishing touches such as gold gliding, copper oxidizing, adding beautiful gemstones, acrylic painting according to client’s choice.

The entire process of creating a statue can take several months or even years. The exact time it takes will depend on the size and complexity of the statue as well as the skill of the artists.