For more than a thousand years, craftsmen in Lalitpur (Patan) in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal have been using the lost-wax process to make Hindu and Buddhist iconographical sculpture. The form is moulded in wax and then cast in copper or bronze. The rough casting is then cleaned, carved and polished and usually given a matt antique finish.

 

Some figures can be partly or wholly gold plated and the face is painted with powdered gold leaf with the features then painted in. Finally the base cover (removable to allow the insertion of relics, prayers etc.) is attached. This is a cottage industry and most of the manufacturing processes are usually performed by members of the same family.