Indian textile makers were highly responsive to their customers’ desires, adjusting styles to suit specific markets. This design of this cloth represents a rare, loosely drawn version of a European-inspired textile produced expressly for the Indonesian consumer. Indian artists painted the stylized repeating pineapple plant motif so it would resemble fashionable European lace-patterned woven silks. Prototypes are readily identified in silks from Lyon, France, and Spitalfields (London) from about 1700. However, a comparison with the panel of chintz shown adjacent—which was made for the European market—illustrates how Indian artists sought to satisfy Indonesian tastes by creating a freer rendering of the European style.

cat. no. 48