The Real Sabya

A grand old Calcutta mansion set in magnificent gardens is the new home for the king of Indian fashion, Sabyasachi Mukherjee. A place where he can be himself, by himself

- Greg Foster

The entrance lobby of designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s home features a Burma teak staircase, with Afghan and Turkish runners on the stairs and pichhwai paintings on the walls. The flooring pattern has been created using white and Jaisalmer yellow marble; the skirting is in unpolished granite. Facing page: The designer— with his nephews—in a corner of the breakfast room. All are dressed in poplin kurta-pajamas with quilted silk bundis (jackets) from Sabyasachi. The corner is decorated with muslin-shaded lamps and plants. The water pipes have been hand-painted to look like the trunks of palm trees to complement the walls, which feature handpainted flora.

A Portuguese mirror, from The Raj Company (Mumbai), is the focal point for one wall in this space, which extends from the living room. The wooden pelmets are topped with a mixture of antiques and bric-a-brac the designer collected during his travels. The ceramic bust under the mirror is from a store on King’s Road, London; Chinese ginger jars, rice jars and Dutch pottery dot the space.

The plantation sofa set is also from The Raj Company, upholstered in a range of fabrics—Bangladeshi nakshi kantha, Varanasi brocade and 18th-century textiles and linens from Guinevere Antiques, also on King’s Road. Mukherjee chose the vintage jade green colour for the living-room walls to match the lush garden outside. A mixture of paints were used to create this particular shade—rose pink, turquoise and moss-green, in that order, all from Asian Paints. Forty-three artists from the Sabyasachi Art Foundation then hand-painted the tropical plants on the walls, inspired by the work of French artist Henri Rousseau.