Length of cotton "chintz"

Crisp cotton curtains like this brought the brilliant colors of South Asia to upper-middle-class British, Dutch and French homes. Probably imported by the British East India Company, this Indian textile boasts a gloriously bold, decorative design, executed in the type of painted cotton cloth manufacturers in Britain and France tried for decades to emulate in vain. From the 1650s onwards, these "chintzes" (anglicizing chint, Hindi for "speckled") made for the European market were such sought-after commodities that Britain eventually criminalized their import in an attempt to protect local printed-cotton industries. The repeat pattern on this well-preserved example is so neatly and consistently represented that it is startling to realize that it was mostly applied freehand, painted on its white support in brilliant dyes by talented Indian kalamkaris (specialist painters).