Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The Role of Textiles in Cross-Cultural Exchange

'The principle riches consist chiefly of silk and cotton stuffs, wherewith everyone from Cape of Good Hope to China, man and woman, is clothed from head to foot.'

(The French traveller François Pyrard writing from Goa, India, early 1600s)

Textiles are among the most important manufactured goods to move between cultures. Their ultimate fragility sometimes lets us forget that they start out far more durable than ceramics and glass, and they are of course more portable. In the Ancient Mediterranean world, linen and wool textiles were traded between Egypt, Greece, and Italy. Fashionable ladies in Ancient Rome dressed in Chinese silk.

Chinese textile designs also influenced the arts of Persia and Byzantium. Indian painted and printed cotton textiles were in demand in East and West alike, so much so that they became the most widely accepted currency of exchange in the Indian Ocean spice trade.

Silk patolu cloth (EA1962.13)   Coverlet with diamond-shapes containing medallions and protruding hooks (EA1978.114)   Sampler fragment with band of script, chevrons, and squares (EA1984.488)   Textile fragment probably imitating patola pattern, with diamond-shapes and crosses (EA1990.1025)

Textile fragment probably imitating patola pattern, with diamond-shapes and squares (EA1990.1026)   Textile fragment with hamsa, or geese, and quatrefoils (EA1990.807)   Textile fragment with leaves, hamsa, or geese, and quatrefoils (EA1990.844)   Cloth with hamsa, or geese, lotus buds, and rosettes (EA1995.61)