Palampore

CultureIndian

Titles

Palampore

Datelate 18th–mid- 19th century

Made inIndia

MediumCotton; plain weave, mordant painted and dyed, resist-dyed

Dimensions121 × 86 3/4 in. (307.3 × 220.3 cm)

Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg

Object numberB.61.47

Not on view

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Department

Bayou Bend

Object Type

TEXTILES

DescriptionEuropean trading companies, like the British United East India Company, introduced cotton fabric and colorfast dyeing to Europe from India. Chintz, or painted cotton, became widely popular in Britain for home decoration, particularly in informal or feminine spaces. Chintz fabric often took the form of palampores, or bed coverings, like this example. Capitalizing on British taste for the exotic, these textiles combined Chinese and Iranian motifs—like the flowering tree—with European elements—like the swagged border—and Indian style to create hybrid patterns. This textile is stamped with the emblem of the United East India Company as well as some undecipherable letters, perhaps an inventory mark in Tamil, a South Asian language. These stamps tell the story of this textile’s journey from India to Britain, illustrating one example of the prolific global textile trade in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
Provenance[Elinor Merrell, New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1961; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Stamped for United East India Company: UEIC
Stamped in black at end near corner: JAL / 38

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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