Podcasts
Beverly Lemire University of Alberta,, Edmonton, Alberta,Canada.
This podcast is intended for educational use only.
India had an established quilt culture long before Portuguese ships first arrived at the subcontinent in 1498. Quilting in various parts of the subcontinent had an ancient history and these objects were renowned for their beauty, whether appliquéd with dyed cotton, embroidered on a plain silk or cotton ground or quilted with painted or printed cottons. In this paper I will explore the impact on Europe of the direct trade with India after 1500, as Indian quilts arrived in Europe in growing numbers. Indian quilts were traded to Europe over a three hundred year period, an inspiration for European needlewomen and artisans. Over the same time the structure and substance of Western-made quilting was transformed; European quilting developed new patterns and forms with the expanded trade in Indian cottons from the mid-seventeenth century and cotton soon became a staple in the production of these objects. Through what K. N. Chaudhuri calls a "transmission of culture" through trade, a hybridised type of bed-furnishing developed that became a key cultural idiom of Western domestic furnishing, as well as a medium of personal expression. By charting this East/West history of quilts, I will show how rare foreign exotics became transposed in to a feature of everyday Western family life, with the idiom of domestic culture enriched in the process.
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L'auteure retrace l'histoire de la courtepointe indienne et sa dissemination à travers l'Europe, à partir de l'arrivée des Portugais en 1498 jusqu'au 19e siècle. Elle adresse les changements importants qu'ont occasionnés ces importations sur les coutrepointes européennes, pendant 300 ans d'échanges commerciaux entre l'Inde et l'Europe.