Antique Finish God Idols Collection

About

An antique finish is a look, not an age Worth settling first, because the word does a lot of work in this category and the results you get searching for it are two different trades mixed together. These are newly made murtis given an aged finish. They are not old, not excavated, not vintage, and not sold as antiquities. If what you want is a genuinely old idol with a provenance behind it, that is a separate and heavily regulated business and this is not it. People arrive here under a lot of names: antique murti, antique god statue, old murti, purani murti, ancient idols, vintage idols. Those names are not all asking for the same thing, and it is worth knowing which one you mean before you spend. What is sold here is the patina, applied on purpose so the piece reads as though it has been in a family for years rather than bought last week. That is an aesthetic decision, and a good one, but it is a decision about how a piece looks and not about how old it is. Why the finish suits a large piece A bright polish throws light straight back at you and flattens the modelling. A patina does the opposite. It settles into the recesses and leaves the raised surfaces lighter, so the carving reads instead of glaring. On a busy form, a standing Vishnu with four attributes, the raised arm on a Shreenathji, the folds on a seated Shiva, that difference is the whole reason to choose this finish over a shiny one. It also needs room to show. Depth in a finish registers on a broad silhouette and disappears on a three inch figure, which is why this range starts at seven inches and runs to twelve rather than covering the small sizes. Dry cloth only, and never a cleaning paste This is the one rule that matters, and it is the reverse of the rule for brass. An antique finish carries a deliberate patina, so dry dusting only, never a cleaning paste, which strips the finish rather than restoring it. Lemon, tamarind and brass polish belong to solid metal, where the tarnish is the thing being remov