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Lot Essay
In the foreground of this scene, the shawls which were assembled or embroidered in the previous painting in the series are further refined ahead of sale. The eye is immediately drawn to the open shawl in the middle of the scene, which appears to be a dochalla, or square shawl, of a style absolutely in keeping with other examples made around the time of the Exposition Universelle. These often had at the middle a quatrefoil medallion in black outlined in white, an example of which from the Etro collection, Milan (published Levi-Strauss 1987, pp.176-7). Like another example published John Ames 1997, pl.166, that shawl had seams in it indicating that it had been assembled from fragments by rafugars. Rolled up at the back are three more shawls evocative of the products of Kashmiri workshops from the early 19th century: the striped one resembles a shawl sold in these Rooms, 18 June 2019, lot 70.
Moorcroft describes the role of a purusgar, or shawl cleaner. He writes that "when a shawl is finished it is the business of this artist to free the shawl from discoloured hairs or yarn and from ends or knots". For this purpose the four men use a broad pair of tweezers: identical tweezers can be seen in a pencil sketch done by John Lockwood Kipling in 1870, only a short while after the Exposition Universelle, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (acc.no.0929:7/(IS)). In that picture, the shawl is suspended on a similar frame as he works. Unlike that figure, all four of our purusgars hold in their left hands a small pale object. They seem to be porous, suggesting that they are perpahs sponges or pumice stones which may have also helped pick up loose hairs. Unlike those working in other scenes, two of the purusgars smoke as they work.
Around that frame, other figures work on amli shawls. Having already been trampled, once again they receive rough treatment. To the left and right, men either beat them on a millstone or trample them, with the figure on the right leaning on a peg driven into the wall for support. The whitened feet of the figures on the right suggest that they might be treading soapy water out of them: one thinks of the two figures standing in bowls in lot 65. Leaning against the back wall are three further shawls around wooden rollers: these may be the same as the ones described by Moorcroft which were used for stretching completed shawls, into which wedges were driven in order to push the sides of the cylinder apart and put the shawl under strain (Murphy 1988, p.18). These various stages of conditioning would ensure the soft texture of the finished product, though it is a testament to the quality of the work that these textiles could stand up to this kind of conditioning. These paintings may have amused or even shocked the visitors to the Exposition Universelle, who would have been scarcely able to believe that something so refined should have been subjected to such force.
The manipulation of space allows Bishan Singh to include two stages of shawl production in this single scene, with a second room visible behind the purusgars where women are engaged in spinning wool. The broadly chronological order of these paintings is thus broken by the appearance of what should be considered the first and most fundamental stage of the shawl making process. To the left, a woman sits with a bowl of raw wool in front of her, and seems to be busy seperating it with her fingers, perhaps assisted by a comb. Moorcroft describes how raw wool, after being mixed with rice flour, is ‘torn to pieces, principally by the nails, and made into somewhat thin elastic pads’. This allowed for inferior wool to be extracted and treated separately, so that only the finest was used to make shawls. Once that had been done and all the wool fibres broadly running in the same direction, she would be able to pass the wool to her colleague at the wheel beside her. Moorcroft describes three types of spinning wheel of which only one, the Pukchedar, is painted, as seems to be the case in this painting: this may indicate the user to be a more prosperous woman, in Moorcroft’s words "not in indigent circumstance but who amuse themselves with spinning". Moorcroft himself implies that the skill of the spinners, who begin to work from the age of around ten, was the crucial reason why Kashmir shawls were of such exceptional finesse: "it is a fact reported that machinery cannot furnish yarn as well adapted for the manufacture of shawls as that spin by hand in Kashmeer" (Moorcroft 1832, p.8).
Moorcroft describes the role of a purusgar, or shawl cleaner. He writes that "when a shawl is finished it is the business of this artist to free the shawl from discoloured hairs or yarn and from ends or knots". For this purpose the four men use a broad pair of tweezers: identical tweezers can be seen in a pencil sketch done by John Lockwood Kipling in 1870, only a short while after the Exposition Universelle, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (acc.no.0929:7/(IS)). In that picture, the shawl is suspended on a similar frame as he works. Unlike that figure, all four of our purusgars hold in their left hands a small pale object. They seem to be porous, suggesting that they are perpahs sponges or pumice stones which may have also helped pick up loose hairs. Unlike those working in other scenes, two of the purusgars smoke as they work.
Around that frame, other figures work on amli shawls. Having already been trampled, once again they receive rough treatment. To the left and right, men either beat them on a millstone or trample them, with the figure on the right leaning on a peg driven into the wall for support. The whitened feet of the figures on the right suggest that they might be treading soapy water out of them: one thinks of the two figures standing in bowls in lot 65. Leaning against the back wall are three further shawls around wooden rollers: these may be the same as the ones described by Moorcroft which were used for stretching completed shawls, into which wedges were driven in order to push the sides of the cylinder apart and put the shawl under strain (Murphy 1988, p.18). These various stages of conditioning would ensure the soft texture of the finished product, though it is a testament to the quality of the work that these textiles could stand up to this kind of conditioning. These paintings may have amused or even shocked the visitors to the Exposition Universelle, who would have been scarcely able to believe that something so refined should have been subjected to such force.
The manipulation of space allows Bishan Singh to include two stages of shawl production in this single scene, with a second room visible behind the purusgars where women are engaged in spinning wool. The broadly chronological order of these paintings is thus broken by the appearance of what should be considered the first and most fundamental stage of the shawl making process. To the left, a woman sits with a bowl of raw wool in front of her, and seems to be busy seperating it with her fingers, perhaps assisted by a comb. Moorcroft describes how raw wool, after being mixed with rice flour, is ‘torn to pieces, principally by the nails, and made into somewhat thin elastic pads’. This allowed for inferior wool to be extracted and treated separately, so that only the finest was used to make shawls. Once that had been done and all the wool fibres broadly running in the same direction, she would be able to pass the wool to her colleague at the wheel beside her. Moorcroft describes three types of spinning wheel of which only one, the Pukchedar, is painted, as seems to be the case in this painting: this may indicate the user to be a more prosperous woman, in Moorcroft’s words "not in indigent circumstance but who amuse themselves with spinning". Moorcroft himself implies that the skill of the spinners, who begin to work from the age of around ten, was the crucial reason why Kashmir shawls were of such exceptional finesse: "it is a fact reported that machinery cannot furnish yarn as well adapted for the manufacture of shawls as that spin by hand in Kashmeer" (Moorcroft 1832, p.8).