Museum's description (from: [1]):

2015 - Gouache by Bishan Singh depicting a Kashmiri shawl weaving workshop, 1874 - 1875

This painting by Bishan Singh, recently acquired thanks to a donation from the Société des Amis du Musée Guimet, depicts a Kashmir shawl weaving workshop.

The word "shawl", spelled "schall" until 1830-40, derives from the Persian shal and refers to a type of woollen cloth. Shawls (kani) are woven from the undercoat (pashmina) of the "Tibetan goat" that lives on the mountain slopes of the Himalayas. The harvested hair was cleaned by the women, then selected according to its quality and sent to the dyer. Before being entrusted to the weavers, they doubled the threads to give them a slight twist. The men then wove the shawl on a horizontal loom. Several people were involved in its creation. The designer (naqqash), who composed the pattern, was followed by the person (tarahgourou) who worked out the design from bottom to top, announced the colors and dictated them to the "pattern master" (talimgourou). The talimgourou transcribed the pattern to the weaver, using a very precise vocabulary. Thus, the weaver had a transcription (talim) for weaving. Several weavers, always men, worked together to create the patterns formed by the wefts. Numerous small spindles, a kind of bobbin, on which wool was wound (espolins), one for each color, made it possible to form a complex pattern.

While the shawls of the early Mughal period were characterized by the realism of their floral motifs, from the 18th century onwards, we see the gradual appearance of an ovoid shape, called a boteh, composed of flowers that seem to emerge from a sort of vase. This Persian-influenced motif would become even more radically stylized in later years, becoming elongated and almost abstract under the reign of Gulâb Singh (1820- 1856), râja of the Lahore court. Colors became increasingly shimmering and the treatment of decoration enjoyed unprecedented freedom, leading to a veritable creative explosion, as witnessed by the shawl offered to merchants, shown on the right-hand side of the painting.

(22.5 x 17.5 x 15 cm)