DECCAN, INDIA, MID-18TH CENTURY

The Kalamkari technique involved applying dyes directly onto cloth. Whilst the term might be most readily associated with the palampores and other textiles made for the Western market in the 18th and 19th centuries, the entrepreneurial dyers of the Coromandel coast also adapted their products to suit the tastes of the Southeast Asian market. The movement of textiles from India to Sulawesi and Bali had a long history. A remarkable textile in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1989.1325) was reportedly found in Sulawesi, and bears an old owner's stamp which may associate it with Raja Man Singh of Jaipur, suggesting it was made in the 16th or 17th century (1989.1325, Rahul Jain, Rapture: the Art of the Indian Textile, New Delhi, 2011, p.58, no.17).

Textiles associated with this cultural milieu were often narrative in content, drawing on the stories from Hindu mythology which were current across the Indian Ocean and beyond. A textile in the Calico Museum, Ahmedabad, for example, is almost three metres in length and depicts many scenes from the Ramayana together with Tamil inscriptions (John Irwin and Margaret Hall, Indian Painted and Printed Fabrics, Volume 1, Ahmedabad, 1971, p.70, no.60). The composition of this lot is rare, and near identical examples are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2008.163), Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2016.42.2), Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.23-1996), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (122.1998), and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (20083A31). A textile with an identical composition was sold in these Rooms, 24 October 2024, lot 157.