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Textile

ca. 1720 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Object Type
This fragment is from a painted cotton hanging or bed cover known as a 'palampore', an anglicised term from the Persian palangposh, or bed cover. It is made of chintz, a generic term for the hand-painted cotton fabrics that were imported in large quantities into Britain and The Netherlands during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Design & Designing
The unreal, hybrid floral designs characteristic of chintz fabrics of the early 18th century are the product of a complex interaction of trade between India, Europe and East Asia. The demands of different markets for 'exotic' goods led to combinations of elements from English embroidery, Islamic floral designs and Chinese ceramics, among other things, all interpreted by the Indian cotton painter. Little distinction was originally made between Indian and Chinese designs, and contemporary writers often refer to Indian furnishings as Chinese, and vice versa.

Materials & Making
Chintz is a term for a series of complex techniques involving the use of mordants - salts used for fixing the dye in the fabric - and resists - inpermeable substances such as wax, that prevent the fabric from being dyed in certain area according to the design. These techniques are particularly associated with coastal south-east India (the so-called 'Coromandel Coast') because of the particularly favourable combination of chemicals in the local soil, water and dye-plants.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Fragment
  • Textile
Materials and techniques
Painted and dyed cotton (chintz)
Brief description
textile; Textiles

textile; Textiles
Physical description
Part of a palampore (bed cover)
Dimensions
  • Im.53 1919 length: 187.8cm
  • Im.53 1919 width: 68cm
  • Part a length: 68.5cm (Maximum)
  • Part a width: 67.5cm (Maximum)
Measured by conservation
Gallery label
British Galleries: LEEK EMBROIDERY' and its Indian source
'Leek embroidery' was a technique of embroidering over ready-printed panels manufactured at Leek in Staffordshire. Skilled embroiderers with a good sense of design could create highly original embroideries that were far from straight copies of the printed ground. This design draws on a variety of styles but its chief models must have been printed chintzes made in southern India a century earlier, like the one shown here.(27/03/2003)
Credit line
Purchased from M. Sylvaine[?] Gleiges, 24 Avenue Gambetta Courbevoie, Seine, France
Object history
Made in South- east India (Coromandel Coast)
Subject depicted
Summary
Object Type
This fragment is from a painted cotton hanging or bed cover known as a 'palampore', an anglicised term from the Persian palangposh, or bed cover. It is made of chintz, a generic term for the hand-painted cotton fabrics that were imported in large quantities into Britain and The Netherlands during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Design & Designing
The unreal, hybrid floral designs characteristic of chintz fabrics of the early 18th century are the product of a complex interaction of trade between India, Europe and East Asia. The demands of different markets for 'exotic' goods led to combinations of elements from English embroidery, Islamic floral designs and Chinese ceramics, among other things, all interpreted by the Indian cotton painter. Little distinction was originally made between Indian and Chinese designs, and contemporary writers often refer to Indian furnishings as Chinese, and vice versa.

Materials & Making
Chintz is a term for a series of complex techniques involving the use of mordants - salts used for fixing the dye in the fabric - and resists - inpermeable substances such as wax, that prevent the fabric from being dyed in certain area according to the design. These techniques are particularly associated with coastal south-east India (the so-called 'Coromandel Coast') because of the particularly favourable combination of chemicals in the local soil, water and dye-plants.
Bibliographic references
  • Crill, Rosemary, Chintz: Indian Textiles for the West, London, 2008. Plate 61; p 108
  • Irwin, John and Katherine Brett, Origins of Chintz, London, 1970. With a catalogue of Indo-European cotton-paintings in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. ISBN 112900534. p.98, cat. no. 74a, pl. 74a
Collection
Accession number
IM.53&A-1919

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Record createdJanuary 16, 2003
Record URL
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