-
Tent hanging
Unknown - Enlarge image
Tent hanging
- Place of origin:
India (south-east, made)
- Date:
mid 17th century (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Cotton, mordant-dyed and resist-dyed
- Museum number:
IS.19-1989
- Gallery location:
South Asia, room 41, case 3
This double-niched hanging would have formed part of a larger set of niches joined together to form a continuous screen or 'qanat'. Screens of this sort would be used either outside, to form an enclosure around a tent or encampment, or inside, to line a tent (hence the term 'tent-hanging') or to divide a larger hall. Something as highly decorated as this hanging would certainly have been used inside rather than be exposed to the elements.
The textile is decorated in the laborious techniques of dyeing with mordants and resists, processes that took many weeks to complete in the case of a complex design such as this. Coastal south-east India (the so-called Coromandel Coast) was the main centre for this type of work, which was produced for use in India as well as for export to the West and to South-east Asia. This remarkable design of a fierce, two-headed bird with elephants in its jaws suggests that it may have been made for use in southern India or Sri Lanka, where the two-headed bird ('bherunda') was a mythical figure often used in decoration.
