Hupari Silver Jewellery Craft
The 'silver city' of Maharashtra, where anklets and toe-rings are made by the tonne.
Hupari, a town in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra, is a major centre for silver jewellery, especially anklets, toe-rings, waist chains, bracelets, hair ornaments and traditional Maharashtrian pieces. Thousands of small workshops and home units make silverware for markets across western and southern India, and the town is nicknamed the 'silver city' for the scale and specialisation of its trade.
Craft at a Glance
Origin
Hupari, Maharashtra
Also Known As
Hupari chandi kaam, the silver city, Kolhapur-belt silverwork
Craft Type
Silver jewellery manufacture
Practising Community
Silversmith families in a fine division of labour — melters, wire-drawers, chain-makers, casters, solderers, polishers
Materials
Sterling and near-sterling silver; borax flux and silver solder; lac or pitch fillers for hollow forms; and acid for pickling.
Known For
Silver anklets (payal), toe-rings (jodvi), chains, waist bands and traditional Maharashtrian ornaments
Where It's Made
Hupari town in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra; a very dense concentration of small workshops
Time to Create
Hours to days per item
GI Status
Not GI-registered
Process Steps
Melting and forming stock
Silver is alloyed, melted and rolled into sheet or drawn into wire of the gauges needed.
Making components
Links, beads, bells, charms and settings are cast, stamped or hand-formed in separate workshops.
Assembling
The components are linked and laid out into the finished ornament — an anklet, a chain, a toe-ring set.
Soldering
The joins are fluxed and soldered so the piece holds together and can take wear.
Engraving and stamping
Pattern is engraved or die-stamped into the surface of the ornament.
Pickling
The soldered piece is soaked in dilute acid to remove firescale and flux.
Polishing and oxidising
The piece is buffed to a shine, and recesses may be blackened so the pattern stands out.
Technique Glossary
Payal / jodvi
Anklets and toe-rings, the core products of Hupari's workshops.
Chain making
The hand or machine assembly of many small links into flexible silver chain.
Oxidising
Deliberately blackening recessed areas of silver to make a pattern stand out.
Pickling
Soaking a soldered piece in dilute acid to clean off firescale and flux residue.
Die stamping
Pressing a pattern or a whole component from sheet silver using a shaped steel die.
Lac filling
Running melted lac into a hollow bangle or bead to support it against denting.
Division of labour
The Hupari system in which each stage of an ornament is done by a different specialist workshop.
A Craft Through Time
Pre-modern
Regional silversmiths
Silversmithing families work in Hupari serving the Kolhapur region.
20th century
A specialised cluster
The town develops a fine division of labour and scales up silver-ornament production.
Late 20th century
Wholesale supply base
Hupari becomes the source for anklets and toe-rings sold by jewellers across many states.
21st century
Price and machine pressure
Rising silver prices and mechanised chain-making reshape the trade and squeeze margins.
Present
The silver city
Thousands of units continue, and Hupari remains a byword for silver anklets and toe-rings in India.
Did You Know?
Hupari is so specialised that a single anklet may be made by half a dozen different workshops in turn — one draws the wire, another forms the links, another solders, another polishes.
Every craft has a story. Every story begins with tradition.