Sharaf un-Nisa's cusion cover may be made of silk and with colored thread that is in sections gold and silver. She may have made this herself.
Contents
A cushion cover that is made of cloth of two contrasting colors; the inner panels are a rich red, and the outer panels are light green/blue. The red panel has floral motifs, and the bluish panel has an undetermined pattern, maybe depicting fire or symbolizing a bird such as a peacock. The thread used to weave the patterns seems to be gold and/or silver thread.
Keywords
Cushion, silk, gold, silver, weaving, fabric, mashru, Mughal, colonial India, Britain, 18th century, commerce, domestic, artisan
Object Type
furniture
Shelfmark
UA SNED2A
Metadata Creators
Munazza Ebtikar, Megan Robb, Michael Goerlitz, Sylvia Houghteling
Repository City
Philadelphia
Roles
[owner] Elizabeth Sharaf un-Nisa Ducarel
Date
Late 18th century
Place Origin
Patna (Azimabad)
Provenance Details
Palmer Family Archive, Devon, England
Language
N/A
Decoration
There are separate patters on each colored part of the cushion. The exact depiction cannot be determined but appears to be of a small flower and some species of bird.
Layout
unstable_archives_item
Hand Script
N/A
Dimensions
16 inches W by 25 inches L
Additional Info
The woven cover appears to have been manufactured with consideration of how much silk was used, based on the lack of excess threads. The blue/gray section may have possibly been a form of mashru, or a mixture of silk and cotton, noting its noticeable roughness and relative dullness. Based on the similarities of other textiles, it likely stems from the region near Patna, or the area now known as Bihar in India. The red cloth features a small, single-stemmed flower that is commonly depicted in seventeenth-century Mughal and Persian silk textiles. It's unclear exactly what the pattern on the blue/gray section exactly is, but it may be a rendition of a bird such as a peacock. Source: https://books.google.ca/books?id=Pp9hxBMGOmQC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=silk+fabric+patna+eighteenth+century&source=bl&ots=IKgOvV3_hZ&sig=ACfU3U1WUYOqQoFmOphzfTfBsRZr1VJA7Q&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=silk%20fabric%20patna%20eighteenth%20century&f=false (p. 63)
Notes Digitizer
Unfold and take a picture of the outside cloth. Also photograph inside of the cloth as much as possible without adding stress to fabric (to capture sewing irregularities). Make sure to capture the hand-sewn between cloth located at the inside of the cusion cover, which is also hand-sewn.