A PALAMPORE WITH A DESIGN OF BAMBOO TREES AND BIRDS - COROMANDEL COAST FOR THE EUROPEAN MARKET

Literature

John Guy, Woven Cargoes: Indian Textiles in the East, 1998, pp. 106, 107 and 187.
Mattiebelle Gittinger, Master Dyers to the World Technique and Trade in Early Indian Dyed Cotton Textiles, 1982, no. 157, pp. 184 and 186.
John Irwin and Katherine B. Brett, Origins of Chintz, 1970.

Description / Expertise

A mordant-painted and resist-dyed cotton palampore with an unusual and elegant design of bamboo trees around which entwine stylisesd rose and peony bushes. The bamboo stalks and sinuous flowiring plants emerge from irregularly shaped rocks in the chinoiserie style.

A palampore with a similar design of bamboos, one of a pair from Twickel Castle in the province of Overijssel in Holland, is illustrated in Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis, Sitsen uit India: Indian Chintzes, 1994, pp.28-31, cat.no.8. The palampores at Twickle Castle have almost identical borders of scrolling vines with flowers. Another Palampore from this group has a St Peterburg trade stamp dated 1775, thus confirming the dating of this group of textiles by stylistic analysis. A chinz of similar design is kept in the Oudheidkamer, Zaandijik.