The art of papier-mache is said to have come from Samarkhand to India in the time of Timur Lane, in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. The base of this craft is paper pulp coarsely mashed and mixed with copper sulphate and rice-flour paste. The figure is given shape by covering it with thin papers and then with layers of this mixture. The designers then sketch the designs intricately on the surface. Finally it is laquered and polished in bright colours.
