Tools for Mending Chain Mail, Jaipur, 1926
This photograph and 2015.491 were taken for Dr. Bashford Dean (first curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Arms and Armor) in response to his request for evidence of any living craftsmen in India who were still making mail armor in the traditional way. A survey of British Residents across India was undertaken on Dean's behalf by Major R. B. Seymour Sewell, Director of the Zoological Survey of India, Indian Museum, Calcutta. The result was that only a single artisan was found, identified as Suraj Uddin in correspondence between Sewell and Dean. Sewell received these photographs from the Resident at Jaipur and mailed them to Dean from Calcutta with a letter dated November 23, 1926. Although sought by Dean for research purposes only, these photographs can be recognized now for their rarity and importance on several counts: they are remarkably well documented Indian examples of the petit métier genre of recording local craft traditions, which began in Europe in the late Middle Ages through the medium of prints and continued via photography into the 1950s; it is extremely unusual, possibly unique, that the name of the craftsman is recorded; as studio photographs made in Jaipur in the 1920s, these photographs may be attributable to Gobindram and Oodeyram, the leading photographers in Jaipur from the 1880s and still active as late as the 1970s; as Dean originally intended, the photographs are invaluable for the tools, materials and the activity that they document.
Taken in conjunction with 2015.491, this is a view of the tools and materials for making or repairing mail, laid out on a cloth covered table along with two mail garments. Both photographs are mounted in what appear to be their original greenish-brown mats, the central opening surrounded by a white lace-pattern frame of alternating C-scrolls and foliage.
Taken in conjunction with 2015.491, this is a view of the tools and materials for making or repairing mail, laid out on a cloth covered table along with two mail garments. Both photographs are mounted in what appear to be their original greenish-brown mats, the central opening surrounded by a white lace-pattern frame of alternating C-scrolls and foliage.
Artwork Details
- Title: Tools for Mending Chain Mail, Jaipur, 1926
- Photography Studio: possibly by Gobindram and Oodeyram (Indian, Jaipur, active late 19th–mid-20th century)
- Date: 1926
- Geography: Jaipur
- Culture: Indian, Jaipur
- Medium: Probably gelatin silver print on mat board
- Dimensions: 5 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (14.6 x 17 cm); mat: 10 x 12 in. (25.4 x 30.5 cm)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, 1926
- Object Number: 2015.492
- Curatorial Department: Arms and Armor
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