Length of cotton "chintz"
Crisp cotton curtains like this brought the brilliant colors of South Asia to upper-middle-class British, Dutch and French homes. Probably imported by the British East India Company, this Indian textile boasts a gloriously bold, decorative design, executed in the type of painted cotton cloth manufacturers in Britain and France tried for decades to emulate in vain. From the 1650s onwards, these "chintzes" (anglicizing chint, Hindi for "speckled") made for the European market were such sought-after commodities that Britain eventually criminalized their import in an attempt to protect local printed-cotton industries. The repeat pattern on this well-preserved example is so neatly and consistently represented that it is startling to realize that it was mostly applied freehand, painted on its white support in brilliant dyes by talented Indian kalamkaris (specialist painters).
Artwork Details
- Title: Length of cotton "chintz"
- Date: first quarter 18th century
- Culture: Indian, Coromandel Coast, for export market
- Medium: Cotton, painted resist and mordant, dyed
- Dimensions: Overall: 153 x 46 in. (388.6 x 116.8 cm)
- Classification: Textiles-Painted and Dyed
- Credit Line: Purchase, Rogers Fund, and Gerald G. Stiebel and Werwaiss Family Charitable Trust Gifts, 2005
- Object Number: 2005.166
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
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Indian, Coromandel Coast, for British market
before 1763
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mid-18th century
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third quarter 18th century
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