Zərnigar
Not to be read, but to be kept — fifty copies, fifty names, one town.
Zərnigar — from «zər» (gold) and «nigar» (ornament): ornamented with gold. It was the name for the most precious pages in the art of the manuscript. In Ordubad, over time, the word came to stand for the most beautiful, the most painstaking and the rarest of all things.
In the XVII century, books were sold in Ordubad's Qeysariyya bazaar alongside silk, saffron and dried fruit. Manuscript masters would make the most precious pages «zərnigar»: they would apply ornament of beaten gold leaf to the margins, spending weeks on a single page. When the master finished a page, he would write his name small in the margin and add the date.
A Zərnigar page was not meant to be read, but to be kept: whoever bought one acquired not a book, but a piece of a master's life. Beneath the dome of the Qeysariyya the sound of trade can still be heard today — it has not ceased for four centuries.
Only fifty Zərnigar chests are made a year. Each has a number, its master's signature and its recipient's name. This box is not a gift — it is the work of a master, the memory of a town and a name written into history.
52×42×16 cm · 12 SLOTS · 4 JAM/TEA + 8 · 4 slots of jam or tea (golden tea, thyme) + 8 slots of nuts and signature sweets
By request only
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