Are these Bidri?

[Kubur]

Hi Harry,

Yes, they are very recent low Indian production. You have plenty on epray.
In the 1970ties they had big factories around Mombay, now they have some to the North too.

Bidri work is different from koftgari. What we can see here is a low quality koftgari: they apply silver decoration on cold metal. Mostly like a painting, normaly the koftgari should be stuck to etched metal.
In the bidri work, they cover the designs and parts that they want to let in silver. Normally covered with clay, then they put the piece in an oven. The non-protected parts will become black. The protected parts will be uncovered later and will stay bright shinny silver.
I hope that I'm understandable...