Wood carvers of Saharanpur, India

Amal Chatterjee
5 min readMar 14, 2020

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Source : Google photo of a skilled carver of Saharanpur, India

Synopsis : Every country has something unique to offer. Some make excellent carpets while others excel in making richly carved furniture of the highest quality with hard wood like Teak, Mahogany and others. This blog highlights the skills of furniture makers of Saharanpur and also the Vietnamese that will amaze you.

Saharanpur In Uttar Pradesh state of India is world famous for its intricately carved Teak wood furniture that the following videos will show you. The best quality Teak wood comes from Myanmar but its import in India is restricted because there is a ban on cutting down Teak forests in Myanmar . So the carvers in Saharanpur now depend on Teak wood from the State of Madhya Pradesh that are sold by the government regulated auctions . The Indian Teak wood is a high quality hard wood that gives excellent luster and shine after polishing so the furniture of Teak are in great demand in spite of its price.

Apart of high quality Teak wood furniture, Sahanranpur is also known for its carved figurines, jewelry boxes, decorative pieces and numerous other things so please see the following links of the two blogs I have published sometime ago. They carve beautiful boxes out of Indian mahogany , sheesham , ebony and other quality wood.

Source : Google photo of a delicately carved set of chairs from Saharanpur

Source : Google photo of a wall decor carved in Saharanpur, India

Source : Google photo of a jewelry box or a perfume box

Source : Google photo of a richly carved screen of Teakwood

Source : Google photo of a round table richly carved and inlay decorated.

Source : Google photo of Saharanpur high quality furniture that brings glamor to any home. Made by superb craftsmen with A grade Teak wood ,they are wonderful.

The following links will show you the skills of the superb Saharanpur carvers who turn out world class pieces of art, furniture and decorative pieces that can bring joy to behold.

Wood carvers of Saharanpur Part one ( Power point) Link

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Wood carvers of Saharanpur Part two ( Power point ) Link

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Note : To see the power points, just follow the links.

India has always been known for its skilled craftsmen and women who practice the woodcraft that they have mastered from their forefathers for centuries. But cutting down hard wood like Teak, Mahogany, Sheesham and others to make quality furniture has depleted the natural forests so the tree cutting is now regulated by the Forest department of India that strictly controls the supply of wood that has made quality wood expensive. The furniture makers now use second grade or poorer quality wood and make some low cost furniture but you can still buy the top quality hard wood furniture in Saharanpur today if you are willing to pay the price.

There are some carved pieces made by computer controlled machines but they pale in comparison to the hand made pieces made by craftsmen who have passed down their skills from generation to generation.

1. Video on Teak wood carved bed made in Saharanpur

Source : U tube video of high quality furniture of Saharanpur, India

2. Video of making of a king size Teak wood bed

Source : U tube video of making of a Teak wood bed by very skilled craftsmen

Note : The videos above are in Hindi with some English descriptions that are easy to understand. It is hard to get a video in English only so I present to you these videos in Hindi just to highlight the excellent quality of the Teak furniture. The carved headboards and the all other carvings like foot board and then sides are varnished in their natural colors but can be also in antique gold and silver colors as per demands of the buyer. It takes a minimum of 75 days to make a small bed but the larger ones take much longer depending on the details of the carvings. These beds can be completely customized for each individual buyer including the pure leather or quilting in the final finishing.

For the ease of shipment they are disassembled like the Ikea furniture that you can assemble at home easily.

3. The gold leaf burnished furniture of Vietnam

For the last video I chose the one from Vietnam where they show how to use gold leaf to cover the furniture to give it a gold burnished look.

Source : U tube video of how gold leaf is applied to richly carved sofa in Vietnam that is a class by itself in furniture making. Vietnamese are highly skilled and make world class furniture. The women are just as skilled as men.

Although the blog is about the wood carvings of Saharanpur, I wanted you to see what the Vietnamese are capable of given their artistry and talent in anything they do.

Hope you liked the videos and will share them with anyone you like.

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

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