A white pocket box that opens into a tray of twelve half pans with a slim Winsor & Newton brush laid across them and a lid that folds back to mix on. The carton is the familiar Cotman livery — the griffin mark, WINSOR & NEWTON in the silver panel, Cotman WATER COLOURS in script on the blue — with the set named beneath in five languages.

Twelve pans for Rs. 9,500 is Rs. 791.67 a pan, and we will not dress that up. It is the dearest paint on this shelf by a distance, and it is also dearer per pan than the larger Cotman box we stock: our Cotman Painting Plus 24 works out at Rs. 729.17. Buying the small box costs you more per colour, not less.

So what is it for? Size. This is a box that goes in a coat pocket, on a walk, in hand luggage — the whole kit is one flat white case that shuts on itself, and there is no separate palette, jar or brush roll to remember. The 24 is a working set for a table; this is the one that actually leaves the house.

Twelve is also a real palette rather than a token. The tray runs a lemon and a warm yellow, an orange and two reds, a blue and an ultramarine, then greens, an ochre, a brown and a white — the primaries doubled warm and cool, which is the minimum from which everything else can be mixed. A painter who knows what they are doing needs very little more.

If the sums matter more than the pocket, our Daler-Rowney Aquafine Studio Set is Rs. 337.50 a pan for forty-eight, and our Sakura Koi 24 sketch box is Rs. 162.50 a pan with a water brush in it. Both are better arithmetic. This one is bought for the name on the carton and for the size of the case.

We list this box from 12 years up. The Safencia price is Rs. 9,500 with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan, and stock, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

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