Makrana White Marble Lotus-Petal Urli Bowl, 12in

The stone

Makrana white marble is quarried in Nagaur district, Rajasthan, from beds that have been worked for centuries and that supplied the Taj Mahal. It is a dense, fine-crystalline calcite stone — bright neutral white with the faintest warm undertone, crossed here and there by grey hairline veins no wider than a pencil line. That density is what lets a bowl this shallow hold its shape: the wall of this urli is worked down close to an inch, and a softer stone would chip at the petal tips long before it reached the polish stage. The satin soft polish stops well short of a mirror, so light rolls across the petal ranks and reveals the carving instead of glancing off it.

The lotus, read as a bowl

An urli is a wide, shallow open vessel — the South Indian form traditionally filled with water and floating flowers. On this one the entire outer wall is carved as overlapping lotus petals, two staggered ranks of them rising from a low moulded circular foot, and the rim is scalloped so the petal edges finish the mouth of the bowl rather than a plain lip. Three small lotus blooms rest on the rim itself, cut from the same block and each opened to a different degree, which keeps the eye moving around the circle. The interior is left plain and smoothly worked, because it is meant to disappear under water once the bowl is in use.

Living with a 12-inch urli

Twelve inches across is the size that works on furniture rather than on the floor: an entryway console, the centre of a coffee table, a dining table laid for a festival meal, a wide sill beside a pooja shelf. Filled with an inch or two of water it will hold marigold heads, rose petals or floating tea lights through Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi or a wedding week, and it reads just as well empty for the rest of the year. At roughly nine kilograms it stays where it is put. Change the water every few days and wipe the bowl dry afterwards — marble is porous, and standing water carrying lime or turmeric will mark the surface over time.

Make it yours

Diameters from nine to twenty-four inches suit the same design, and the petal ranks can be cut deeper for heavier shadow or kept shallow for a quieter piece. The bowl can be made in Vietnam white marble, black stone or Dholpur pink sandstone instead of Makrana, with or without the blooms on the rim, and as a matching pair for a symmetrical entryway. Tell us the room and the table it is going on, and we will design it with you, brief the sculptors who carve it, and follow the piece through to your door.