Minneapolis Institute of Art

Painted silk palampore

China

Date

late 18th century

Medium

Silk satin painted with opaque mineral and vegetable pigments

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Palampores were large, painstakingly painted and/or printed textiles made in India and then other parts of Asia for the western market in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were luxury goods marketed to an elite clientele who used them for bed or wall furnishings. This palampore, made in China, is distinguished from its Indian counterparts for its use of a silk satin – as opposed to cotton – ground, and for its pastel-inflected color palette which was commonly used in Chinese export workshops. Painted silk palampores from this period are very rare, but this example is made more exceptional by the fact that a nearly identical one survives in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation collection.

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