Palampore

Palampores were produced on the Coromandel Coast.{{Cite book |last=Bose |first=Melia Belli |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jDxEAAAQBAJ&dq=palampore+coromandel&pg=PT248 |title=Threads of globalization: Fashion, textiles, and gender in Asia in the long twentieth century |date=2024-02-06 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-1-5261-6339-4 |language=en}} Palampore were recorded as being traded in Salem in the 18th Century.{{Cite book |last=Reddy |first=Moola Atchi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XTzLEAAAQBAJ&dq=palampore&pg=PT87 |title=East India Company and Trade in South India: Madras, 1746–1803 |date=2023-09-08 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-93814-2 |language=en}}

The term palampore may come from palangposh, a term for bedcover from Hindi "palang" (bed) and Persian "posh" (cover){{Cite journal |last=Greco |first=JoAnn |date=February 2004 |title=Fragile Beauty |journal=Art & Antiques |volume=27 |issue=2 |via=Art & Architecture Source}} or from Palanpur, the northwest Indian trading town.{{cite magazine |last=Filler |first=Martin |date=April 2001 |title=Palampores |url= |magazine=House Beautiful |location= |volume=143 |publisher= |access-date=}}

File:Antique Palampore Chintz Indian Textile.jpg

Palampores were mordant-painted and resist-dyed.{{Cite book |last1=Baumgarten |first1=Linda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRzkDwAAQBAJ&dq=palampore&pg=PA18 |title=Four Centuries of Quilts: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection |last2=Ivey |first2=Kimberly Smith |date=2014-10-28 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-20736-1 |language=en}} A palampore was made using the kalamkari technique, whereby an artist drew designs on cotton or linen fabric with a kalam pen containing mordant and then dipped the textile in dye. The dye adhered to the cloth only where the mordant had been applied. This lengthy process had to be repeated for each color in the design. Small details were then painted by hand on the cloth after the dying process was completed.{{Cite journal |last=Gupta |first=Mira |date=2023 |title=Lessons in Chemistry |journal=Selvedge |issue=117 |via=Art & Architecture Source}}

Analysis indicates that some palampores were produced using chay root dye to create colours in the red and brown range.{{Cite journal |last1=Houghteling |first1=Sylvia |last2=Shibayama |first2=Nobuko |date=2019 |title=Tools of the Master Dyer: Dye Materials in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century South Asian Painted Cotton Textiles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art |journal=Textile Museum Journal |volume=46}}{{Cite journal |last1=Rosenfield |first1=Yael |last2=Shibayama |first2=Nobuko |date=2020 |title=The Color Red: Madder Dyes as Determinants of Provenance in a Group of Kalamkari Textiles |journal=Textile Museum Journal |volume=47}}

Some palampores had embroidery of chain stitch worked in silk thread.{{Cite journal |last=Parekh |first=Radhi |date=2023 |title=When Indian Flowers Bloomed in Distant Lands |journal=Selvedge |issue=112 |via=Art & Architecture Source}}

Palampore patterns were usually very complex and elaborate, depicting a wide variety of plants, flowers, and animals, including peacocks, elephants, and horses. Because a palampore was hand-created, each design is unique, but many featured a central flowering tree with a mound at the base where there may be animals.{{Cite book |last=Bogansky |first=Amy Elizabeth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BYjh82N63IQC&dq=palampore&pg=PA298 |title=Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800 |date=2013 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-1-58839-496-5 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last1=Barnes |first1=Ruth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zTbrAAAAMAAJ&q=palampore |title=Trade, Temple & Court: Indian Textiles from the Tapi Collection |last2=Cohen |first2=Steven |last3=Crill |first3=Rosemary |date=2002 |publisher=India Book House |isbn=978-81-7508-354-7 |language=en}}

Design historians have noted the similarities between palampores and crewel embroidery and suggested that English trends may have influenced what East India Company directors commissioned in India.{{Citation |last=Riello |first=Giorgio |title=The Indian Apprenticeship: The Trade of Indian Textiles and the Making of European Cottons |date=2009 |work=How India Clothed the World |pages=309–346 |editor-last=Riello |editor-first=Giorgio |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv2gjwskd.19 |access-date=2024-07-17 |series=The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850 |publisher=Brill |jstor=10.1163/j.ctv2gjwskd.19 |isbn=978-90-04-17653-9 |editor2-last=Roy |editor2-first=Tirthankar}}

Palampore made for Persia and the Mughal courts were more likely to be more formal and symmetrical in design. They depicted architectural structures, shrubs and tent interiors.{{Cite book |last=Maxwell |first=Robyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bRDRAgAAQBAJ&dq=palampore&pg=PT750 |title=Textiles of Southeast Asia: Trade, Tradition and Transformation |date=2012-08-07 |publisher=Tuttle Publishing |isbn=978-1-4629-0698-7 |language=en}}

Palampore was popular in the Mughal and Deccan Courts. The borders of these pieces were block printed while the centre depicted intricate designs, made by hand.{{Cite journal |date=29 July 1910 |title=Kalamkar (or Palampore) - Indian (Eighteenth Century) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bgtGAQAAMAAJ&q=palampore |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts |volume=58 |pages=825–827}}

Palampores were exported to Europe and to Dutch colonists in Indonesia and what was then called Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka).{{Cite book |last=Laury |first=Elise Schebler Roberts, Helen Kelley, Sandra Dallas, Jennifer Chiaverini, Jean Ray |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p1qH8_lpTHUC&dq=palampore&pg=PA15 |title=The Quilt |publisher=Voyageur Press |isbn=978-1-61060-536-6 |language=en}}

Palampore were labour-intensive to produce, and the light fabric they were made from is fragile, therefore, the few examples that have survived are often quite valuable today.{{Cite journal |last=Pollard |first=Maura |date=September 1998 |title=Historic Bedcoverings in Brief |journal=Colonial Homes |volume=24 |issue=4}}

Palampores predated European production of printed-textiles and influenced innovations in chemicals and techniques used in Europe, and improvements in quality.{{Cite journal |last=Raman |first=Alka |date=May 2022 |title=Indian cotton textiles and British industrialization: Evidence of comparative learning in the British cotton industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries |journal=Economic History Review |volume=75 |issue=2 |via=Business Source Complete}}{{cite magazine |last=Riello |first=Giorgio |date=January 2014 |title=Cotton |url= |access-date= |magazine=History Today |publisher= |location= |volume=64 |issue=1}}

In a domestic setting, American and European embroiderers cut around Indian printed cotton designs and attached them to quilts.{{Cite journal |last=Baumgarten |first=Linda |date=2017 |title=Made in India |journal=Selvedge |issue=76}}

English printers began to copy palampore designs using block printing methods with a large-scale repeat to create fabric that could be used for curtains or bedding. In France, the Braquenié fabric house produced designs inspired by palampores from the 1800s.{{Cite journal |last=Martin |first=Hannah |date=November 2019 |title=Tree of Life |journal=Architectural Digest |volume=76 |issue=10 |via=Academic Search Complete}}

• [https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?kw_object_type=Palampore&page=1&page_size=15 Palampores at the V&A]

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• [https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/object/218005 A palampore made on India's Coromandel Coast -- now at the National Gallery of Australia]
• [https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/object/162469 A palampore made in India -- now at the National Gallery of Australia]
• [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/intx/ho_1982.66.htm A palampore made on India's Coromandel Coast -- now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Category:Painted fabrics

Category:Textile arts of India

Category:Indian inventions