Leather Puppet from Andhra Pradesh

These leather puppets have been brought from Andhra Pradesh to Surajkund Crafts Fair, an annual handloom and handcraft fair conducted by Haryana Tourism. In Andhra, the art of shadow puppetry is known as Thollu bommalata, meaning dance of leather puppets (Thollu means leather and bommalata means puppet dance).

Andhra leather puppets are tinged in excellent colours and are made out of animal skin. These painted puppets have joints at the shoulders, elbow and the hip, all secured for manipulation by a string. Traditionally vegetable dyes are used for colouring the puppets.