18th century
India
Object qualities
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Objecttextile (towels, carpets, etc.): Hanging
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Type of arts & crafts 1
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Type of arts & crafts 2
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MediumCotton (painted resist and mordant, dyed)
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SizeOverall: 83 x 43 1/8 in. (210.8 x 109.5 cm)
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Geography details
India -
Country today
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Date18th century
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CultureIndia (Coromandel Coast), for the Thai market
Source of information
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Type of sourceDatabase “Metropolitan Museum of Art”
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Fund that the source refers toMetropolitan Museum of Art
Description
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Luxury painted cotton textiles expressly commissioned for the Siamese royal court constitute a specialized category of the Indian chintz trade. They include designs that closely follow Thai aesthetics—densely rendered decorative detail typically arranged in trellis-like lattice patterns that repeat across a central field. Here figures of the Hindu deity Brahma emanate from cartouches set within a trellis pattern of heavenly nymphs (apsara) and sandal-flower rosettes. Its intricate decorative detail was achieved by a series of repeat resist-dyeing processes that built up the pattern’s polychrome complexity.
cat. no. 40
Reconstructions of this ornament