Indian block printing: technology, entrepreneurship and innovation across time and place
- Submitting institution
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Nottingham Trent University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 11R - 1321897
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Cotton in context. Manufacturing, marketing, and consumption of early modern textiles in the German speaking world (1500 – 1900)
- Publisher
- Böhlau
- ISBN
- 9783412515102
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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C - Fashion and Textiles Research Centre
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- An outcome of a collaborative project about cotton developed with historians from the German-speaking world, led by Bern University, this chapter illuminates technological exchanges between India and Europe in the early modern period. It examines key historical accounts of Indian printing and dyeing written by agents of the English and French East India Companies, compiled to enable import substitution by the colonial powers, and compares them to current practice among artisans in southeast and northwest India. It establishes a continuity of practice in the region of modern Gujarat of over 300 years and identifies the unique characteristics of the technologies employed in both Gujarat and southeast India. It maps how centres of printing and dyeing activities have shifted, analysing the factors influencing ascent and decline over 400+ years.
Harnessing technical understanding of natural dyes to extensive fieldwork among artisans and traders in India - research supported by the British Academy and the Nehru Trust - allows this deep knowledge of contemporary practices of printing and dyeing cotton in India to be applied to analysis of historical accounts of these activities; the latter accessed through work at the Calico Museum of Textiles, Ahmedabad.
The chapter was first presented and discussed at a research symposium (2016) and subsequently peer-reviewed by 3 editors specialising in the history of global trade; revisions were implemented based on their comments. Mapping the trajectory of Indian painted and printed cottons through analysis of the technology across time and place, it offers evidence through the voices of artisans which is aligned to textual sources. The author’s familiarity with the contemporary textiles trade enables a nuanced appraisal of the rise and fall of its commercial centres. Drawing on this breadth of knowledge, the chapter accounts for the survival of the technology and the enduring popularity of Indian printed cottons.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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