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 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.
Lovely portrait!
and – a lovely photo! :))
What a lovely handcraft, and a lovely lady as well! 🙂
Nice portrait!
She is a beautiful woman.
Perfect portrait, Indrani!
Wonderful portrait, delicious and pretty picture.
A beautiful, open face. She has very fine hands.
nice theme, the portraits 🙂 will check the others as well 🙂
Lovely capture, Indrani! She is a beautiful women!
What lovely eyes!
A great composition and I like her sari.
I have so enjoyed this series, Indrani, and, of course, as my four months in India is drawing to a close in less than two weeks, I've seen some wonderful faces of my own.
Oh she is beautiful!!
Hugs
SueAnn
Ein wunderbares Portrait liebe Indrani…
Grüsse aus der Schweiz
Hans-Peter
very good shot
Wonderfully done ……..
Beautiful shot. I could make out that the lady is from the South. Her nose is pierced to the right.
Such a lovely woman and what beautiful eyes!! Wonderful capture — again, Indrani! Hope your weekend is going well!
Sylvia