Handcrafted Makrana White Marble Radha Krishna Jugal Jodi on Lotus Base, 2ft

Makrana marble comes out of the Nagaur district of Rajasthan, from quarries that have been worked for close to a thousand years and that supplied the stone for the Taj Mahal. It is a dense, close-grained calcite marble with a bright natural white body and faint grey hairline veining that runs quietly rather than dramatically — which is what a devotional pair needs, because the stone should never compete with the faces. On this 24-inch Radha Krishna jugal jodi the surface is taken to a soft satin polish, so it holds diya light in a warm glow instead of throwing back the hard glare a mirror finish gives. Each piece in this form is made to order by the master sculptors we work with in Jaipur — independent artist families whose workshops do murti work year-round. The block is squared and roughed out first, then both figures are brought up together from a single mass so their proportions stay true to each other: Krishna a little taller, Radha's shoulder line sitting just below his. Faces, fingers, the flute, the jewellery and the fall of the dhoti and sari are all hand-finished with fine chisels and hand-held rotary points, never machine-finished. The lotus base is cut last, petal by petal. Jugal jodi means the divine couple, and it is the form most Vaishnava households keep. Krishna stands in tribhanga — the three-bend posture Indian sculpture reserves for him — flute raised to his lips, a peacock feather set into his crown. Radha stands at his left with a lotus in one hand and the other resting at his shoulder. Both share one full-bloom lotus base rather than two separate plinths, the older convention, which reads as the pair being inseparable. In Braj tradition her name is spoken first, always: Radha Krishna, never the other way round. At 24 inches the pair works as the presiding murti of a home mandir shelf or a pooja room niche — tall enough to hold the room, compact enough that a standard mandir chowki takes it without the base overhanging. Allow roughly 17 inches of shelf width and 10 inches of depth, and keep the faces at or above your seated eye line for aarti. The satin surface wipes clean with a dry cloth; keep lamps and camphor in front of the base rather than beside the figures. This is also the size most often chosen as a wedding gift, given to a couple setting up their first home. The same jugal jodi can be planned from 12 inches up to garden scale, in Vietnam white marble or black stone for a different tone, and with a mirror polish in place of satin. A separate carved chowki, a gold-leaf crown, or a name and date engraved on the base for a wedding are all things we can work out with you before the sculptor begins.