M.2024.184.3
Shawl (Rumal)
India, Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir region
1870s
Goat-fleece underdown twill double-interlocking tapestry-weave, pieced, with wool embroidery
72 x 70 in.
This rumal (square-shaped shawl) features a series of intricately embroidered peacocks amid interconnected ogival shapes. The central field is filled with floral scrolls, scalloped edges, and flowering motifs in a dense composition that suggests an 1870s date. Because embroidery allows for more flexibility than the patterned weaving techniques typical of Kashmir shawls, each peacock is slightly different from the others. Furthermore, the fine stem embroidery stitches were all sewn in roughly the same slanted direction approximating a two-by-two twill weave, the weave pattern unique to tapestry-woven Kashmir shawls.
Although twill-tapestry weave, or kani as the technique is known locally, was the principal method of producing the decorative patterns of Kashmir shawls, as the designs grew more complex and labor-intensive, embroidery on undyed woven pashmina became another method of ornamentation by the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This school of embroidery, called amlikar (aml meaning “action,” kar meaning “work” in Persian), used evenly laid stitches so that no stitch predominated and, at a distance, the embroidered shawl appeared tapestry woven. Eventually, karkhanas (embroidery workshops) appeared in Kashmir where master needleworkers (called rafugar) created replicas of woven shawls. Though striking in their surface decoration, embroidered shawls required less time to complete and were about a third less expensive than a tapestry-woven shawl.
Kashmir shawls like this one were prized for their luxurious feel, light weight, and warmth, and were popular globally. Their preciousness resides in the extraordinary tactile properties of ultra-fine pashm (cashmere) fibers, which were brushed from the soft underdown of Capra hircus (goats) that roamed the Himalayas hundreds of miles from Kashmir and were key to the region’s famous shawl production.
Clarissa M. Esguerra
2024