The early Mughal rulers Akbar and Jahangir were interested in fashion stuffs, carpets, and ornamental textiles. Both emperors had a penchant for inventing new names for garments and other clothing. Akbar is recorded as having ordered a new coat or dress with a round skirt to be tied on the right side. This jama may be a later version of the Akbari garment. Its lengthy sleeves would have been gathered up on the arm when the dress was worn. In a painting of Shah Jahan, he is seen to be wearing a similar garment tied with lappets on the right. He is also dressed in tight-fitting trousers, a colorful sash holding a dagger, and a bejeweled turban. Grandees of the realm wore similar clothing but dressed according to their rank. Sometimes individual nobles were given robes of honor by the emperor as a mark of distinction.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Man's Robe (Jama) with Poppies
Date:17th century
Geography:Attributed to India, Deccan, Burhanpur or Hyderabad
Medium:Cotton; painted, with applied gold leaf
Dimensions:Robe: L. 55 in. (139.7 cm) W. 80 in. (203.2 cm) Case: L. 78 in. (198.1 cm) W. 36 in. (91.4 cm) D. 36 in. (91.4 cm)
Classification:Textiles-Costumes
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1929
Object Number:29.135
Man's Robe (Jama) with Poppies
The production of cotton textiles at Burhanpur included not only dyed cottons but also painted fabrics like the one used to make this eighteenth-century robe. The pink poppies were created using a method more akin to painting on paper than the resist- and mordant-dyeing process employed to produce kalamkaris. First, the decoration was painted onto the fabric with pigments and gold leaf combined with adhesive, after which the surface of the textile was covered with starch and burnished. Silk bands now form the robe’s underarm ties and define the hem, wrists, and collar. These seem to have been added when the garment was retailored to fit a new owner, and probably replaced elements that had become worn.[1]
While the robe is quite Mughal in design and tailoring, its provenance connects it to the Deccan.[2] It is also similar to a robe in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which is said to have come from the collection of the Nizam of Hyderabad.[3] Furthermore, the pattern of the fabric and style of the robe match those of garments depicted in northern Deccani paintings of the late seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, the period of Mughal rule in the region.[4] The extralong sleeves, worn bunched at the wrists, and the full skirt, which reaches the ankles, are the most notable features of this robe style.
Marika Sardar in (Haidar and Sardar 2015)
Footnotes:
1- Observations made by conservator Nobuko Kajitani. See Kajitani, Nobuko, "A Retrospective of 1973 Conservation Treatment on a Mughal Court Robe with the Pigment-Painted Poppy Flower Pattern" In The Conservation of 18th-Century Painted Silk Dress, edited by Chris Paulocik and Sean Flaherty, pp. 118-29. New York: The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Graduate Program in Costume Studies, New York University.
2- The dealer who sold this jama to the Metropolitan Museum stated that it came from Warangal; Imre Schwaiger, invoice, October 21, 1929, curatorial files, Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
3- Victoria and Albert Museum (IM.312-1921).
4- For example, see Abdul Ghaffar Khan Bahadur (Zebrowski, Mark "Deccani Painting". London: Sotheby’s; Berkeley: University of California Press 1983, p. 210, ill. no. 181); Muslim Nobleman Smoking on a Verandah (ibid., p. 219, ill. no. 190); or Allah-wirdi Khan Receiving a Petition (ibid., p. 236, ill. no. 209).
[ Imre Schwaiger, London, until 1929; sold 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.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Bravehearts: Men In Skirts," November 4, 2003–February 8, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy," April 20–July 26, 2015, no. 182.
Dimand, Maurice S. A Guide to an Exhibition of Oriental Rugs and Textiles. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1935. p. 34, ill. fig. 28 (b/w).
Ettinghausen, Richard. "Islamic Art." MMA Bulletin vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring 1975). p. 44, ill. (color).
Welch, Stuart Cary. The Islamic World. vol. 11. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. pp. 146–47, ill. fig. 112 (color).
Calza, Gian Carlo. "The Great Emperor of India." In Akbar. Milan: Skira, 2012. pp. 74–75, ill. fig. 42 (color).
Haidar, Navina, and Marika Sardar. "Opulence and Fantasy." In Sultans of Deccan India 1500–1700. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. no. 182, p. 306, ill. (color).
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