Hand-Painted Shrinathji Murti in Black Marble with Gold Detailing, 15 in

Black marble gives this Shrinathji swaroop the depth the form asks for. The svarupa enshrined at Nathdwara in Mewar since 1672 is black stone, and that darkness is inseparable from how devotees recognise the form — the face, the raised arm and the small closed fists read as silhouette first and colour second. This 15-inch piece keeps that convention: one standing bas-relief panel, the figure set inside a carved torana arch, the stone taken to a mirror polish so the black holds light along every curve rather than going flat. The panel is cut from a single block, so the arch, the pillars, the figure and the plinth are continuous stone rather than assembled parts. Roughing out comes first, then the arch and the figure are brought forward in relief, and only after that does the fine work begin — the rounded child face, the fingers of the raised fist, the anklets and the toes. Faces and hands are finished by hand throughout, never machine-tooled. We design the piece with you, brief the sculptor we work with here in Jaipur, and follow the carving through every stage until it reaches your door. What separates this from a plain black murti is the shringar. Over the polished stone the vagha is painted in red and saffron with gold-leaf borders, and the mukut, the necklaces, the armlets and the waistband are picked out in gold — the same vocabulary the sevaks at Nathdwara use when they dress the swaroop for each darshan of the day. The iconography stays exact: the left arm raised aloft and closed at the fist for the lifting of Govardhan, the right hand a fist at the waist with the thumb out, both feet flat and frontal, and the body proportioned as a child of about seven years. At 15 inches the murti settles into a home mandir without needing a shrine built around it — a console, a wooden singhasan or a shelf at seated eye level all suit it, and the shallow depth of the panel lets it stand flush against a back wall. Black stone reads best with a warm light low near the base, which is how most families already light a mandir, and the gold catches that light without needing a spot. Dust the painted areas with a dry cloth only; water and cleaning agents lift gold leaf over time. Sizes run from 6 inches upward, and the same swaroop can be made in plain polished black stone without the painted shringar, or paired with a carved singhasan to raise it. Tell us how your mandir is set up and we will quote against it.