Trade, Temple & Court: The Tapi Collection - Hardcover

Crill, Rosemary

9788175083547: Trade, Temple & Court: The Tapi Collection

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 8175083549 ISBN 13: 9788175083547

Publisher: UNKNO, 2003

Features selections from an outstanding private collection of traditional Indian textiles that comprises exquisite export market material.

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About the Author:

Ruth Barnes received a doctorate from the University of Oxford, based on her research published as The Ikat Textiles of Lamalera, A Study of an Eastern Indonesian Weaving Tradition. She has written numerous articles on eastern Indonesian weaving and related art forms, and also jointly editedDress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Context. Her current research is on historical aspects of the Indian Ocean trade network; as part of this investigation she has publishedIndian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt: The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum.

Steven Cohen received his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, on the subject of floorspreads in pre-Mughal India. Formerly Deputy Editor ofHalimagazine, and now an independent textile historian, he has specialised in the general study of Asian textiles, with early Indian woven silks, Indian knotted-pile carpets, and structural analysis as primary interests.

Rosemary Crill is Deputy Curator of the Indian & South-East Asian Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, where she specialises in Indian textiles and Rajasthani painting. Her publications includeHats from India, Tie-dyed Textiles of India(co-author),Colours of the Indus:Costume and Textiles of Pakistan(co-author),Indian Ikat Textiles,Marwar Painting:A History of the Jodhpur Style(IBH), andIndian Embroidery.

From Introduction: This book is intended to present some outstanding pieces from an exceptional collection of Indian historical textiles, brought together as the Tapi collection by Praful and Shilpa Shah. It was our privilege and great pleasure to work closely together with the collectors, and to be able to share in their enjoyment of what must be one of the finest private textile collections in India today. The intention of the publication is to present key pieces from five distinct groups represented in the collection: trade textiles destined for the Asian market; textiles for the trade with Europe; Kashmir shawls; court and urban textiles including woven, embroidered and painted pieces for domestic use; and religious hangings. We see these as the strength of the collection as it currently stands, although there are several fine and interesting ethnographic textiles that had to be ignored for the purpose of this publication.

The earliest textiles in the collection were made in Gujarat for export to South-east Asia, specifically for the trade with eastern Indonesia. Several of these remarkable cloths date to the 14th and 15th century, with a few as early as the second half of the 13th century. This means that they were imported into maritime South-east Asia well before the arrival of European travellers and merchants in the Indian Ocean world. The material represents a particular strength in the Tapi collection, both in quality and quantity. It is increasingly being complemented by later (18th- and 19th-century) trade textiles made in south-east India for export to western Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. The selection of approximately 30 pieces, out of well over 200 currently in the collection, was a difficult one. The ultimate choice fell on textiles that were either representative of this type of trade cloth and could offer a glimpse of the range available, or that were of such unusual and outstanding quality that they simply had to be included.

The painted cottons and embroideries made for the Western market date from the 18th century, with the exception of the earlier Portuguese-market fragment. They represent the aesthetic high point of production of these beautiful textiles made for the Dutch and British markets, and some of the examples in the Tapi collection are outstanding pieces in a rich field. The quilted chintz bed-cover, for example, is surely one of the finest textiles of this type to have survived in any collection. As they were destined for export rather than local use, very few Western-market chintzes or embroideries are to be found in Indian textile collections, and it is gratifying that their presence in the Tapi collection goes some way to rectify this situation.

Pichhwaisand other textiles for religious use are ostensibly a very different category of material although, perhaps surprisingly, some share common geographical attributions and manufacturing techniques with pieces made for the South-east Asian and Western markets. As well as the pictorial pichhwaismade specifically for the Vallabhacharya sect of Vaishnavite Hindus, two other exceptionally interesting pieces made for Hindu worship are also included in this section. Textiles made for secular use in India are divided into two groups here. As the Tapi collection is exceptionally rich in Kashmir shawls, especially in rare early pieces, these have been given their own section, while other woven, embroidered, printed or painted textiles made for a variety of urban and courtly settings are grouped together in the fourth section. These range from grand 17th-century floorspreads, sashes and hangings to beautifully made but relatively recent examples of weaving such as cottonjamdaniand silk Baluchari pieces.

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