Description:
Quilted cotton palampore with a dense block-printed and hand-painted floral design of flowers and leaves primarily in reds and blues and some orange surrounded by an outer and inner border, quilted with linen thread; beige, plain weave cotton backing; and cotton and wool batting. The quilt top or face textile was probably decorated on the northern Coromandel Coast of India. This bed covering is an important example of the kinds of Indian printed, mordant and resist dyed cotton export domestic textiles used in the American colonies under Britain's United East India Company. The dyes used include chay root (reds and blacks) and indigo (blues). Overpainting of yellow onto blue (to make green) is largely gone, as is indigo over red to produce purples. Usually the red colors were added first in the dying process, followed by blue, however different European accounts of Indian dyeing vary. Some colors have faded such as the evidence of purple near the center and possibly an overpainted yellow (to produce green). The framed center medallion quilting design of this example roughly follows the printed pattern. It is possible that this quilt was meant to be reversible, with the colorful printed design on the face and the plain whole (cotton) cloth of the reverse offering two options. While quilts appear to have been produced in India for the British market, the presence of mixed cotton and wool batting and linen quilting thread (and possibly the quilting pattern) suggests that the fabric was probably made in India, quilted in England (by women working for the upholstery trade), and then likely re-exported to the colonies. Indian quilts would have likely used cotton quilting thread and batting. In 1600, a group of English merchants persuaded Queen Elizabeth I to charter a trading company known as the English East India Trading Company formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and opium. With the arrival of the English and other European traders in India, these colorful, block-printed and hand-painted cloths became very popular in the west. The English called them palampores from Persian and Hindi 'palang[k]-posh' or bedcover (the word first appears in the East India Company records in 1616), and the Portuguese called them 'pintado' (painted cloth). In the 17th and 18th centuries, India also exported quilts to the American colonies through the East India Trading Company. Far more common to describe these textiles in the colonies were "chintz [or calico] quilts," "indian quilts," and "painted carpets." While these patterns seem foreign and exotic, they were developed in the 17th century by English merchants and importers, based on prevailing British designs. The carpet-like design aesthetic may suggest an area of production in northwest India, which produced textile dsigns influenced by Persia. The decorated face may have also originally been conceived as a floor covering. The face fabric is seamed down the center, with each half about 40" wide. The same is true for the plain cotton backing. No selvage is visible, and the design does not line up at this center seam. Most of the pattern elements have a black outline. The woven density of the textile is 28 x 24 cpi (centimeters per inch), or about 11" x 9.5" tpi (threads per inch). Both the warp and weft were spun in a Z twist.
Label Text:
Woven and decorated in India, and exported by England’s East India Company, “painted carpets” and “chints quilts” appear in New England homes by the late 17th century. Draped on furniture such as cupboards and bedsteads, they were also known as palampores, possibly a corruption of the Persian and Hindi word palan[k]-posh, or bed cover. The Portuguese, trading with India in the 16th century, referred to these decorated fabrics as pintados.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+F.021 |
