Cream woven Shawl, Kashmir, 19th Century.

A woven shawl, or doshala, with large floral paisley cones, or boteh, with a cream coloured center.

Shawls were woven entirely by hand. Each colour of yarn was wound on a small bobbin and manipulated backwards and forwards through the fixed warp(lengthwise) threads to build up the design. Where the different colour areas met, the two yarns were interlocked, producing a characteristic ridge on the back of the fabric. The process of weaving a large shawl, often with a highly complex design, was slow, specialised, laborious work, taking anything from eighteen months to three years to complete.
This example was bought in India in 1882 by Caspar Purdon Clarke, who purchased over 140 Kashmir shawls for the Museum. Not all survive; some are only fragments.

Though Kashmir shawls are worn and used as a warm protective garment all over north India today, Kashmir has become synonymous with shawls all over the world. The shawl became a popular fashion item in the nineteenth century with its sudden migration from the foothills of the Himalayas to the salons of early nineteenth-century Europe.

Large or complex shawls took many months to complete. The best quality shawls were made from the underbelly fleece of the wild central Asian goat; second grade wool, pashmina, came from domesticated goats. Many shawls were brought back to Europe and they became a popular fashion item in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were imitated, notably in Norwich, Paisley and France, using different types of yarn, and increasingly mechanised processes such as the Jacquard loom. Western demand also affected Kashmiri production, and by the time this shawl was made, the classic boteh design, derived from flowering plants, had become stylised.

IS.2081A-1883