Cover (Rumal)

Cushion Cover

Mughal "painted" cottons were used primarily as furnishings for tents, decorative temporary screens, mats, floor spreads, and cushion covers like this example. Dominating the plain ground is a circular medallion with two floral pendants. The medallion and the diagonally placed corner pieces are embellished with fantastic, luxuriant, curving staves composed of flowers, fruits, and other plant life. The corner pieces bear an elegant, persianized, long-tailed bird. The medallion, however, has three species of birdlife: the long-tailed bird, a stork, and a turkey. The emperor Jahangir was fascinated by animals and birds, and he commissioned his court artists to paint many of the specimens he observed. The turkey, which appears here, is otherwise rarely depicted in Mughal miniatures and textiles although it is found in the central medallion of two textiles similar to this one: the first in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the other in the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad. Six identical stylized trees, flanked on each side by a regardant bird, complete the decoration on the field. A lush leaf-and-rosette scroll fills the border.

Carolyn Kane in [Berlin 1981]

Imre Schwaiger, London (until 1928; gifted to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of the Art of India from The Museum's Collections," January 18–May 31, 1973, no catalogue.

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 142, pp. 328–29, ill. (b/w).

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