Anaheeta Mehta and Urmila Jain hand-paint porcelain soup bowls, platters, vases and plates that carry Mughal paintings, Madhubani art and scenes from old Bombay, sometimes peppered with gold, finds Anjana Vaswani 
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Lithographs depicting scenes from life in India during the British Raj</td></tr></tbody></table>If that platter you are picking your cheese and crackers from, is from Aarman Art, it's likely that it has taken weeks of tedious handwork to produce. Urmila Jain and Anaheeta Mehta, who were once part of the Indus Ladies Group, tell you their ten-member-group of "on-glaze" artists is now down to two, but they proudly keep the tradition alive. Anaheeta, an avid art collector, says her interest in Mughal and Persian Art, and modern abstracts helps conceive a range of hand-painted porcelain platters, soup bowls, candy dishes and vases. The partners who have worked together for 35 years, employ two homemakers to help them create some of Aarman Art's finer pieces. A recent example of their work is the bright gold and blue Madhubani painting-inspired plate that sits confidently amid a room full of pastel-painted crockery. "This is one of our newest experiments, and we have used real liquid gold on it," Urmila beams. The use of gold and platinum to embellish the creations add to the price tag, as do factors like how fine the artwork is, how many times the dish had to be popped into the kiln, and the quality of the blank porcelain or bone China dish that's used as the base. Customise your curios Customising their products is what excites the duo. Recently, a friend from Singapore saw one of their current creations lithographs of Old India recreated on porcelain and wanted them to refurbish his old office in Singapore in a similar style. It's refreshing to know it's not just the big orders that the ladies are gung-ho about. In fact, they are happy to work on small boxes or curios, but their style of art limits their creations to surface texturing that can withstand the 800 degree heat in the kiln. They import high-quality blanks from Europe, USA, China, Ceylon and Singapore Persian art, Indian folklore as inspirationThe rich heritage of Mughal, Persian and traditional Indian folk art provides ample inspiration, but the two admit to being influenced by a picture or graphic in a book too. Anaheeta shows us one of her favourites: a soup bowl and bread-basket dish set embellished with intricately painted exotic mushrooms, priced at Rs 7,250. A set of round boxes embellished with gold-painted raised-paste is priced at Rs 2,550 each. A vase in one corner of the room is decorated with maple leaves, the workmanship on it so fine, it makes you wonder if they were stamped on. AT: 44, Bajaj Bhavan, Nariman Point. Call: 9820023680. Log on to: <a href="http://www.aarmanart.comtheguide@mid-day.com">www.aarmanart.com<a href="mailto:theguide@mid-day.com">theguide@mid-day.com</a> </a>

Anaheeta Mehta and Urmila Jain hand-paint porcelain soup bowls, platters, vases and plates that carry Mughal paintings, Madhubani art and scenes from old Bombay, sometimes peppered with gold, finds Anjana Vaswani

Benaras ghat on your cheese platter

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Benaras ghat on your cheese platter

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