I just saw the V&A Fabric of India exhibition. It’s great: gorgeous colours, lots of short videos about how things are made … and several pieces that irresistibly reminded me of Persian textiles. You’ve just got time to go see for yourself – it ends 10 Jan
There was a lovely handpainted floor spread from the Coromandel coast.
Even if Persian textiles don’t have flowery grounds quite like the one here, it includes sportsmen and drinkers who look really quite Persian to me.
The image below is a turned-round version of a detail from the top border. Look at their hats, look at the clothes!
Or do you think I’m wrong? Maybe the faces are more Indian than Persian?
A mid-17th century, Deccan silk and velvet hanging from LACMA has a very similar feeling compared to the late 16th / early 17th century, Iranian silk velvet on permanent display in the V&A. Even if the figures shown in the Deccan textile are women, while the Persian textile shows men!
Was this some sort of standard? Or is it possible that the Indian weavers saw something like the Persian textiles? And decided to try something similar?
And look at this early chintz (below) – with two men and two youths dressed a la Persane – even if they have disconcertingly blue eyes. It includes two European men – who are said to be “probably Dutch” – a striped dog, and two women in Indian-Western dress; plus glass dishes and vessels in Venetian, European, Chinese and Indo-Persian styles; all set in some sort of Indian palace.
It’s all very similar to motifs in Persian book paintings, if not in quite so many Persian textiles. It’s another reminder of the spread of the Persianate world!
