Velvet Panel with Rows of Flowers

Panel with Rows of Flowers

Velvets patterned with rows of flowers were employed in India from about 1630 on in the context of palace interiors, where blossoms were seen virtually everywhere—in wall paintings, marble panels and other elements decorated with pietra dura inlay, carved marble dado panels on walls, and furnishing fabrics.[1] Even the individuals who passed through these spaces were dressed and accessorized in accordance with the prevailing taste for the flower style. Velvets were prized as furnishing fabrics, used chiefly as hangings, window curtains, and floor-spreads. Lahore and Gujarat are known to have been production centers for velvet since the time of the emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605),[2] and the material was probably also produced at royal workshops in the capital cities of Delhi and Agra.

This panel has a pattern of alternating rows of seminaturalistic roses and lilies. An additional fragment of the same fabric belongs to the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.,[3] and a number of variations of this pattern type are also known.[4] Several small surviving areas of original selvage, showing two red stripes, occur along the left edge. The satin ground in the areas lacking pile—now beige or pale golden yellow, but originally perhaps peach or pink from safflower—contain passes of flat (ungilt) silver strips, now turned black. These were woven with enough space separating them that the ground color would have shown through. The velvet pile has two whites, one bright, the other bluish, which are employed in such a way that subtle diagonal bands slanting down to the right are formed in the pattern. This velvet differs in several respects from Persian examples, even ones with similar patterning (see MMA no. 14.67). First, in terms of style and aesthetic, the flowers here do not shift direction from row to row even though the species change; the flowers are therefore inherently more naturalistic, while the pattern is more static. Second, in terms of structure, most noteworthy here is the use of flat metal strips instead of the thin metal sheet wrapped around a silk core found in Persian examples. These strips are passed from edge to edge, running behind the areas of pattern, because Indian weavers found this method more efficient.

The panel is made up of two pieces of velvet that fit together perfectly. By a remarkable stroke of luck, the second piece was donated in 1991 by Alice Heeramaneck, who had no knowledge of the existence of the contiguous piece, purchased from the dealer Joseph Brummer in 1930, which was already in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection.

Daniel Walker in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

1. Two paintings from about 1635 that illustrate the impact of the flower style on Mughal palace interiors may be found in King of the World: The Padshahnama, an Imperial Mughal Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle. Exhibition, National Museum of India,
New Delhi, and other venues. Catalogue by Milo Cleveland Beach and Ebba Koch with Wheeler [M.] Thackston. London and Washington, D.C., 1997, folios 5 and 10.

2. Abu’l Fazl ‘Allami. The A’in-i Akbari by Abu’l Fazl ‘Allami. Translated by H[enry F.] Blochmann andH[enry] S. Jarrett; edited by D[ouglas]
C[raven] Phillott. 3rd ed. Calcutta, 1977, vol. 1, pp. 98–99.

3. No. OC6.150, acquired by museum founder George Hewitt Myers in 1949 from Nasli Heeramaneck.

4. A classic variation is published in Spuhler, Friedrich. Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection. Translated by George and Cornelia Wingfield Digby. London, 1978, pp. 202–3, no. 123. Another important example is the velvet railing hanging in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, illustrated in Smart, Ellen S. “A Preliminary Report on a Group of Important Mughal Textiles.” Textile Museum Journal 25 (1986), p. 19, fig. 23. The Chester Beatty velvet bears an inscription indicating that the piece was first inventoried in Amber in February 1648.

Ruth Teschner Costantino, New York (until 1925; sold to Brummer); [ Brummer Gallery, New York, 1925–48; sold to Heeramaneck ]; Alice N. Heeramaneck, New York (1948–91; gifted to MMA)

New York. Asia Society. "The Art of Mughal India, Painting and Precious Objects," January 1, 1964–March 31, 1964, no. 57.

Welch, Stuart Cary. The Art of Mughal India : Painting and Precious Objects. An Asia House Gallery publication. New York: Asia Society, 1963. no. 57, p. 171, ill. (b/w).

The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966. no. 251, p. 168.

Dunn-Vaturi, Anne-Elizabeth, and Martina Rugiadi. "in: The Brummer Galleries, Paris and New York. Edited by Biro, Brennan and Force." In The Brummer Gallery and the Making of Iranian and Islamic Art, edited by Yaëlle Biro, Christine Brennan, and Christel Hollevoet-Force. Brill, 2023. p. 449.