Pashmina, embroidery Kashmir, Norht-West India. XX century
The unique weave, intricate patterns and detailed embroidery of Kashmir shawls have been celebrated for centuries. This exhibition features well-preserved late-19th and early-20th century items with original, superbly finished jamevar borders and end-pieces skillfully attached on fine pashmina. The extraordinary skills of the multitude of craftsmen who collectively produced these magnificent textiles are evident in all the pieces on display.
The finest example of existent Indian woven textiles, antique pashmina shawls are either kani (loom-woven using small wooden spokes locally known as kani), amli (embroidered), or sometimes a combination of both, as in do-rukha (reversible) shawls where the woven surface is augmented with well-defined needlework in order to strengthen the single interlocking of the discontinuous coloured weft. Kani shawls, i.e., figured pashmina in twill weave, are referred to as jamevar, this word deriving from a generic reference to the yardage/length for a jama/‘garment’. They exemplify an art/craft form actualizing its highest potential through the superlative skills of a particular community of weavers, needle-workers and embroiderers who even today carefully protect their pushtaini taleem (hereditary specialized knowledge) passed from one generation to the next — fathers to sons, elders to youngsters, master artisans to apprentices.
The Kashmir shawl became an essential feature of royal, aristocratic and privileged lifestyles in North India and West Asia from the mid-16th to mid-19th centuries. Garments were produced in different styles and forms.. Pashmina was also used in the expensive tents of the court and nobility. Trade in shawls and other pashmina items became even more profitable during the colonial period, when the fabric came to be known in the West as ‘cashmere’ and found exclusive markets/buyers from as far east as Russia to as far west as France and Britain.
In order to meet commercial targets, a fundamental shift took place in shawl design and manufacturing techniques during the 19th century. Each shawl was no longer woven as a singular piece on one loom, an arduous process that could take months or even years. Production now became collective — individual components of the same shawl (the main field, borders/sub-borders, central and corner motifs, embroidered fringes) were separately and simultaneously woven on multiple looms by teams of weavers. In the finishing stages, rafoogars (Darners) with their extraordinary needle skills stitched the various pieces and separate panels together to complete the item. Their fine work so perfectly concealed the original joinery that it was visible only when the piece was flipped over and seen against the light.