The oval metal face casting represents Narsingh, a man of Kumaon, a culturally affluent place, and a member of the Pahari tribe. The casting is mounted on an oval wooden frame, thereby allegorizing the fusion of art materials into one strikingly ceremonial object. Narsingh, together with the location for which he hails, the Kumaon, is inscribed on the cast face, indicating the normative behaviour when memorializing individuals with personal identifiers and geographical identifiers.
Pahari community lives across Himachal Pradesh. In their homeland, they have striven to maintain intrigues in temple architecture, ritualistic art, and metal industries, which sets apart places like Kumaon from others. Such a face mould must have been set up to honour an old man, valiant warrior, or head of household perhaps in memorials or to perform ceremonial functions. The cast gives a rather subtle realistic detailing to facial characteristics-the true spirit of traditional Himalayan metalwork. Evidence of skill manifest in recovery of tradition speaks volumes to this community about the values of remembrance, lineage pride, and artistic manifestation. Retrospectively this relic-however enshrined at the Indian Museum, Kolkata-related to identities and memory material culture, speaks an important ethnographic narrative of the Pahari heritage.