Collection Highlights
Ice cream dish
1877-1878
1980.14
Silver
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Museum Collections
Luce Center
Bedcover or wall hanging (palampore)
Object name
Bedcover or wall hanging (palampore)
Date
ca. 1720-1740
Medium
Cotton, linen, paint
Dimensions
Overall: 78 1/2 x 52 1/2 x 1/4 in. ( 199.4 x 133.4 x 0.6 cm )
Description
Painted pieced cotton bedcover or wall hanging (palampore) with ornate flowering tree in center panel ("Indian Veil" or Tree of Life design) and border with scrolling vine; blue, red, brown, and black on natural ground; linen backing (not original).
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. J. Insley Blair
Object Number
1938.1
Gallery Label
The word "palampore" derives from the Persian and Hindi word "palangposh," or bedcover. Palampores are mentioned in the records of the English East India Company as early as 1614, and a number of them with histories of eighteenth-century ownership survive in the United States (see "Textiles in America, 1650-1870," p. 314).
Rosemary Crill, Senior Curator, Asian Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, has dated this palampore 10 ca. 1720-40, May 2009, and attributed its production to the Coromandel Coast of India. email correspondence with Marybeth De Filippis
Bibliography
Krohn, Deborah, Peter Miller, and Marybeth De Filippis, eds., "Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick." New York: Bard Graduate Center, New-York Historical Society, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009, p. iix; 266-7
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
