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Lot Essay
The word palampore is a possible Anglicisation of palang-posh or bedcover, which describes the principal use of these export cloths, although other sources claim it to have derived from the town of Palanpur in Gujarat (Hobson-Jobson, 1903, p.662). Painted and printed cloths with a flowering tree or large-scale floral design were in demand both in Europe and in Indonesia, where they circulated in the eighteenth century and later.
The present panel shows an iteration of deep madder red oversized flowers and serrated leaves shaded in blue covering the near entirety of a cream ground. This tight layout and the blue shading of leaves occurs on published examples dated 1700-1725 and kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Crill, 2008, pl.9 and 34, p.43 and 75). The former intense red of our palampore can be seen on three examples of the Thakkar Collection, all reportedely found in Sri Lanka (Guy and Thakkar, 2015, ill. 29-31, 33-34, pp.95-107). The intricate serrated flowers seen on the left of each wreath printed on a 18th century cloth skirt aimed at the Sri Lankan market is closely related to the serrated lotus blooms of our palampore (ibid.cat 29, p.95). Although faded our panel show some traces of the marrooon seen on a palampore painted and pritned with a tree-of-life pattern amidst dented leaves and flowers. Pecks attributes it to the first quarter of the 18th century and made for the Sri Lankan market (Peck, 2014, cat. 37, p. 187).
A very tight drawn textile with exuberant madder red lotus flowers and thin borders dated to circa 1720-30 and tailored as a kimono, now kept in a private collection, is published in The Fabric of India, exhibition catalogue, London, 2015, cat. 180, p.177.
Our example illustrates how the Dutch East India Company played a significant role in the dissemination of Indian motifs through trade as far afield as Japan.
The present panel shows an iteration of deep madder red oversized flowers and serrated leaves shaded in blue covering the near entirety of a cream ground. This tight layout and the blue shading of leaves occurs on published examples dated 1700-1725 and kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Crill, 2008, pl.9 and 34, p.43 and 75). The former intense red of our palampore can be seen on three examples of the Thakkar Collection, all reportedely found in Sri Lanka (Guy and Thakkar, 2015, ill. 29-31, 33-34, pp.95-107). The intricate serrated flowers seen on the left of each wreath printed on a 18th century cloth skirt aimed at the Sri Lankan market is closely related to the serrated lotus blooms of our palampore (ibid.cat 29, p.95). Although faded our panel show some traces of the marrooon seen on a palampore painted and pritned with a tree-of-life pattern amidst dented leaves and flowers. Pecks attributes it to the first quarter of the 18th century and made for the Sri Lankan market (Peck, 2014, cat. 37, p. 187).
A very tight drawn textile with exuberant madder red lotus flowers and thin borders dated to circa 1720-30 and tailored as a kimono, now kept in a private collection, is published in The Fabric of India, exhibition catalogue, London, 2015, cat. 180, p.177.
Our example illustrates how the Dutch East India Company played a significant role in the dissemination of Indian motifs through trade as far afield as Japan.