M.2024.184.4
Moon Shawl (Chand-dar)
India, Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir region
circa 1800
Goat-fleece underdown twill double-interlocking tapestry-weave
49 1/8 x 51 3/4 in.
This moon shawl (chand-dar), with its signature moon-shaped disk at the center, dates to the turn of the nineteenth century. Such shawls first appeared around 1680 in Kashmir, located in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, modeled after a type of sixteenth-century Islamic carpet or from bookbinding and manuscript illumination. Worn in a variety of ways on the upper body by both men and women, the style eventually became fashionable among the elite of not only Kashmir but Europe and Persia as well. This example is woven with red and white stripes with buti (small butas) regularly placed in the stripes in a style called khat-rast, meaning “straight road.” Such stripes were also popular in Ottoman women’s dress. Here, the shawl’s striped warps are seen through the Mughal-style medallions composed of concentric circular rows of alternating blossoms in red, yellow, and blue. In each corner are quarter-moons, customary for moon shawls, but the four half-moons at each side are rare for this style.
Kashmir shawls like this one were prized for their luxurious feel, light weight, and warmth. Their preciousness resides in the extraordinary tactile properties of ultra-fine pashm (cashmere) fibers, which were brushed from the underdown of Capra hircus (goats) that roamed the Himalayas hundreds of miles from Kashmir. The imported fibers were processed, spun, and woven into shawls decorated with buta and floral motifs, achieved with tapestry weaving on a standard horizontal loom. Unlike any other tapestry-woven fabric in the world, Kashmir shawls were made with a two-by-two twill weave throughout, with wefts double-interlocking at the transition between each colored thread to prevent slit openings. Known locally as kani, this technique resulted in textiles with the astounding clarity of design and cohesiveness in the drape of the fabric unique to Kashmir shawls. These textiles required an extremely high level of skill to weave and were laborious to produce, especially as designs became progressively more intricate through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Clarissa M. Esguerra
2024