Tholu Bommalata Artist – Faces of India 53

A Tholu bommalata artist from Andhra Pradesh. She is working on table lamp made of leather.

Faces of India

a series through which I intend to portray the various characters of my country whom I met during my travels. I bring back souvenirs, frozen moments from my travels, why not some memories of people I have met and interacted during the travels. Faces of India is a weekly series in my blog since MARCH 2011. See more here

Tholu bommalata artist

Tholu Bommalata Artist making leather wall lamp shade

Andhra hand crafted leather lamps is a product of Tholu Bommalata, an ancient folk art. The puppets of Tholu Bommalata is made from goat leather around 5 to 6 feet height, painted with local made natural colors, and used for demonstrating this Art in the form of puppetry show. Tholu means leather and bommalata is puppet dance, literally translating to “the dance of leather puppets”.

This is a 2200-year-old craft; it received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2008.

This folk artwork traces has its origin in 200 BCE during the rule of the Satavahana Dynasty. The Satavahana kingdom comprised the present-day Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra. The rulers of these states patronized the puppeteers.

The British invaders suspected these artists of spying for the local kings in the garb of performing night-long puppet shows. So they were exiled out of Sahyadri Hills and thus they migrated to other regions of south India.

The artists now make lamp shades with the goat leather and use the same art style on them.

Since puppetry art is fading away, the artists use this craft knowledge to make various products like wall hangings, paintings, clocks, etc. The artwork depicts scenes from Hindu epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Many artisans practice this as a hereditary craft in places like Nimmalakunta in Anantapur district, Narsaraopet in Guntur district and D.C. Palle in Nellore district. These places are considered as the main centers of leather puppet industry in Andhra Pradesh.

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