Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt: The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
A catalogue of Newberry's block-printed textiles by Ruth Barnes (published Oxford, 1997).
Publications online: 581 objects
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Textile fragment with hamsa, or geese, and quatrefoils
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Literature notes
A continuous design of geese encircling a medallion, with additional leaves arranged as quatrefoils. The outlines of the design are white, the geese, medallions, and leaves are red and brown, and the background is pink.
Blue stitching to mend a small hole, as well as a black seam. The reverse shows more dye saturation than the surface. The dye analysis has shown that the colorant for the pink was alizarin with purpurin, from Rubia tinctorum L., while the red and brown was probably produced with a combination of colorants. Both morindone and alizarin with purpurin were found present, the first from a variety of morinda root, the second from Rubia tinctorum L. Possibly 15th century; see Cat. no. 797 [EA1990.804] for radiocarbon result. -
Details
- Associated place
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Asia › India › west India › Gujarat (place of creation)
- Date
- c. 1400
- Material and technique
- cotton, block-printed with resist, and mordant-dyed pink, red and brown; with repair stitching in blue flax, and a seam in black cotton
- Dimensions
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25.5 x 13 cm max. (length x width)
along length/width 19 / 18 threads/cm max. (thread count)
- Material index
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dyed › resist dyed,coloured › dyed › resist dyed
- Technique index
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assembled › woven › plain woven,woven › plain woven,coloured › dyed › mordant dyed,dyed › mordant dyed,
- Object type index
- No. of items
- 1
- Credit line
- Presented by Professor Percy Newberry, 1941.
- Accession no.
- EA1990.807
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Further reading
Barnes, Ruth, Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt: The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), no. 805 on p. 236 (vol. ii), vol. ii p. 236, illus. vol. ii p. 236 fig. 805 & vol. i pl. 40
Barnes, Ruth, Emma Dick, and Jon Thompson, Textiles Through the Ages (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2002), cat. p. 14, illus. p. 14
Pfister, R., Les toiles imprimées de Fostat et l'Hindoustan (Paris: Les Éditions d'Art et d'Histoire, 1938), cat. fig. IIa, illus. 32-33
Washington, D.C.: Textile Museum, Autumn 1982, Chicago: The Field Museum of Natural History, 1982, and New York: The Asia Society Gallery, 1982, Master Dyers to the World: Technique and Trade in Early Indian Dyed Cotton Textiles, Mattiebelle Gittinger, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Textile Museum, 1982), cat. fig. 38, illus. 52
Bérinstain, Valérie, ‘Early Indian Textiles Discovered in Egypt’, Marg, 40/3, (1989), cat. fig. 1, illus. 17
Location
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- currently in research collection
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
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Publications online
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Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt: The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
A continuous design of geese encircling a medallion, with additional leaves arranged as quatrefoils. The outlines of the design are white, the geese, medallions, and leaves are red and brown, and the background is pink.
Blue stitching to mend a small hole, as well as a black seam. The reverse shows more dye saturation than the surface. The dye analysis has shown that the colorant for the pink was alizarin with purpurin, from Rubia tinctorum L., while the red and brown was probably produced with a combination of colorants. Both morindone and alizarin with purpurin were found present, the first from a variety of morinda root, the second from Rubia tinctorum L. Possibly 15th century; see Cat. no. 797 [EA1990.804] for radiocarbon result.
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