Explanation: Persian Engraving on a vase

[faqihinia]

First I want to thank you for your kind comments,
Ok, let me explain the process now, at first I should mention that the vase itself without any engraving is a handicraft! Some other masters in our city (Isfahan) make vases, bowls, … with their tools, that is they make these artworks from sheets of copper only by special hammers and their hands! That is truly amazing, and we need them for this type of work because the vase, cylinder, … must be uniform and It must not be cracked through the process, for example the vase that you saw earlier does not have any hole or crack on its surface or through its patterns,
The next step is that a painter draws the patterns on the vase with a marker, then we fill the vase with pieces of melted and hot tar, you should be very careful here and in the next steps, because if you don't have the skill, the vase explodes! Then with special chisels we hit borders of patterns,and then we hit the background of the vase until the patterns start becoming embossed, the vase should remain symmetrical and fine, after a lot of engravings with about 50 different chisels, we fire the vase until the tar melts and begins coming out of the vase, and then we fire the vase itself until the remaining tar inside the vase burns to ash, we wash the vase with some acid and other materials, and then another important level is to smooth the background and patterns with chisels without the tar inside the vase, and after a few other steps for making the vase shiny and …. It will be finished, but notice that it is not such a simple work, and there are also levels that I has not mentioned here and the whole work is complicated and demands a very highly skilled artist,
Thank you for reading my post and at the end I put a picture of one of my masters working on another vase about a few years ago at their decent workshop!,
(Please informed me if you did not understand any part of my explanation, you know I am not an expert at English language, thank you )

 

[thughes]

Very beautiful. Thank you for the explanation, it's very interesting.

Todd

 

[atexascowboy2011]

If I understand you correctly, I'm thinking this is the reverse of repousee, being hammered from the front instead of the back. Then again, maybe ALL repousee is down from the top/front. I've never tried or seen it done.

 

[atexascowboy2011]

OK, OK.
Google first , BEFORE opening mouth!
From what I gather y'all are strictly chasing?, or working from the front.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

If I understand you correctly, I'm thinking this is the reverse of repousee, being hammered from the front instead of the back. Then again, maybe ALL repousee is down from the top/front. I've never tried or seen it done.

I met a great craftsman in Maine many years ago now who used to do a lot of chasing and repoussé but from what I understood, he always did the repoussé from the back. He had one hell of a collection of weird looking tools to enable him to do so, and to help him work from the inside of many different shaped vessels. It blew my mind because basically he was working blind (basically, he'd hit the tool with a hammer and the punch being on some kind of fulcrum would smack against the inside of the vessel but he couldn't see where the punch would actually fall, he just knew it from years of experience) but the quality of his work was out of this world!

Faqihinia, your work looks amazing. I would love to see a video of you working on a vase and all the various stages you describe.

 

[faqihinia]

Very beautiful. Thank you for the explanation, it's very interesting.

Todd

Thank you Todd, you're welcome!

 

[faqihinia]

If I understand you correctly, I'm thinking this is the reverse of repousee, being hammered from the front instead of the back. Then again, maybe ALL repousee is down from the top/front. I've never tried or seen it done.

That's exactly right in the case of vases, cylinders, etc, but of course in the case of flat sheets of copper, we do just like chasing and repousee, and as
you mentioned we perform vases just in a reverse manner compared to flat sheets, thank you for commenting!

 

[faqihinia]

I met a great craftsman in Maine many years ago now who used to do a lot of chasing and repoussé but from what I understood, he always did the repoussé from the back.
Faqihinia, your work looks amazing. I would love to see a video of you working on a vase and all the various stages you describe.

What a nice and amazing story!!! I love to meet these kinds of artists, thank you dear Marcus for sharing the story, But as I said earlier I have not tried a
vase yet, and unfortunately I do not have a good video to describe it, but I will try to provide one from me and my masters perhaps in our workshop, in the future,
And even my masters do not work on vases and cylinders frequently, you see because the vases' price is much higher than the flat ones, and unfortunately
people in Iran do not support and buy artworks in recent decades and there are not many tourists here either, but I hope the situation will get better soon,
Anyway thank you for your comment,and by the way I visited your website and your works are really cool!

 

[Dave London]

It is great to see that old world craftsmanship ,is still alive and well. Also your English is just fine. Thanks for the interesting post , more ,more :clapping:

 

[faqihinia]

It is great to see that old world craftsmanship ,is still alive and well. Also your English is just fine. Thanks for the interesting post , more ,more :clapping:

So do I,yes ,this art as many arts in our country originates from about three thousand years ago, I mean the Achaemenid period, some of them are in the metropolitan museum of art in New York city, and many artists here art trying to keep their heritage alive!
you see I have practiced English for a few years and I am still studying it regularly, thank you for encouraging me,

 

[Roger Bleile]

Faqihina,

Thanks for exposing us to the high level of craft done by you and your colleagues in Iran. One thing that surprises me is that, given the extensive work required on a vase, they are not made of sterling silver. In silver, I would think, the overall market value would be higher than the extra cost of the silver. Perhaps it is traditional to only do these in copper.

Cheers,
Roger

 

[monk]

very interesting explanation. the photo showing your master: that vase would take an extreme amount of work to pound that into its' final shape. with the copper work hardening after limited hammering, a good deal of heating would be needed to assure the vessel was crack free. this work is very nice, and i thank you for showing and telling how the work is done. feel welcome, please,to show anytime the work you do.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

That is simply amazing and the photo of the work in the background is stunning.

I'm sure it is all a lot more complicated than you have described.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[faqihinia]

Faqihina,

Thanks for exposing us to the high level of craft done by you and your colleagues in Iran. One thing that surprises me is that, given the extensive work required on a vase, they are not made of sterling silver. In silver, I would think, the overall market value would be higher than the extra cost of the silver. Perhaps it is traditional to only do these in copper.

Cheers,
Roger

You're welcome Roger, well, Engraving in Iran is divided into two major groups, One of course is the type I showed to you, the other is engraving
without chasing and repousee, I mean usually it is not embossed, but they have a very detailed patterns compared to chasing and repousee works instead, many of their chisels are different form us in the size and their chisels have small and exact tip, and they usually work on silver, we work on
copper because its ductility is good enough for embossed patterns and also another reason is the market, as I said in one of my comments unfortunately
people in Iran do not support and buy artworks in recent decades and there are not many tourists here either (because of political issues ), so how we can work on silver when there are not enough customers, but I can show you one of the second group engravings in the picture below,thank you.

 

[faqihinia]

very interesting explanation. the photo showing your master: that vase would take an extreme amount of work to pound that into its' final shape. with the copper work hardening after limited hammering, a good deal of heating would be needed to assure the vessel was crack free. this work is very nice, and i thank you for showing and telling how the work is done. feel welcome, please,to show anytime the work you do.

You're very welcome, that is exactly right, one of the important procedures during the work is heating the vessel enough until
it becomes more deformable(because of the hot tar under it) and also it would not leave any crack,thank you!

 

[faqihinia]

That is simply amazing and the photo of the work in the background is stunning.

I'm sure it is all a lot more complicated than you have described.

Cheers
Andrew

Happy to hear that! I will try to post more in the future,

cheers
Amirreza

 

[monk]

the last vase you showed, is a quite beautiful piece to behold !

 

[faqihinia]

the last vase you showed, is a quite beautiful piece to behold !

Thank you, although this is not a very professional one, but it was good enough to introduce this kind of
engraving here, and also this kind of engraving only involves chisels and a hammer just like my work.