A richly illustrated history of textiles in the Mughal Empire In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a vast array of textiles circulated throughout the Mughal Empire. Made from rare fibers and crafted using virtuosic techniques, these exquisite objects animated early modern experience, from the intimate, sensory pleasure of garments to the monumentality of imperial tents. The Art of Cloth in Mughal India tells the story of textiles crafted and collected across South Asia and beyond, illuminating how cloth participated in political negotiations, social conversations, and the shared seasonal rhythms of the year. Drawing on small-scale paintings, popular poetry, chronicle histories, and royal inventory records, Sylvia Houghteling charts the travels of textiles from the Mughal imperial court to the kingdoms of Rajasthan, the Deccan sultanates, and the British Isles. She shows how the “art of cloth” encompassed both the making of textiles as well as their creative uses. Houghteling asks what cloth made its wearers feel, how it acted in space, and what images and memories it conjured in the mind. She reveals how woven objects began to evoke the natural environment, convey political and personal meaning, and span the distance between faraway people and places. Beautifully illustrated, The Art of Cloth in Mughal India offers an incomparable account of the aesthetics and techniques of cloth and cloth making and the ways that textiles shaped the social, political, religious, and aesthetic life of early modern South Asia.
* Features Indian textiles pieces from the Karun Thakar Collection, and The Textile Museum and Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection in Washington, DC* Published to accompany an exhibition at The Textile Museum at George Washington University in Washington, DC, opening January 2022The book features items from one of the world's foremost private collections of Indian textiles, the Karun Thakar Collection, together with key pieces from two recently united American collections, The Textile Museum and the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection in Washington, DC. The book and accompanying exhibition offer a unique approach to understanding Indian textile culture through reference to three distinct traditions: abstract, floral and figurative design.With essays by three leading international Indian textile curators, the publication's focus on textile ornament rather than date, region, usage, or technique provides new perspective and scholarship on this ancient artistic tradition. The book highlights the tradition's remarkable diversity, with objects ranging from folk embroideries to Mughal courtly weavings, and from early textiles traded to Egypt and Southeast Asia to 18th-century chintzes exported to Europe.
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