Exhibition & Museum Writing, No. ❶
January – September, 2021
Journey of the Jamawar
Aldrich Galleries, RISD Museum
Labels written with editing by Kate Irvin and Amy Pickworth
First traded across Persia and South Asia, intricately woven jamawar textiles are reservoirs of collective memory. This exhibit focuses on five examples created between 1800 and 1900—before these highly prized textiles were colonized for the European market. These works demonstrate the versatility of jamawars and the various ways they are used to shroud the body.
Through the jamawar, we can trace human expansion, cultural migration, and the evolution of design across the Asian subcontinent.
Jamawar fabric is densely patterned with arabesque interlocking vines and floral motifs. These styles first originated in Persia in the 1400s, traveling across South Asia with the army of the Mughal emperor Babur. These patterns evolved to suit the tastes of patrons of the princely states in South Asia, the Persian elite, and later, European colonizers. Adopted by skilled weavers in Kashmir, these extravagant designs were highly prized by the new rulers of the region and other foreigners. Persian aesthetics softly pulsate on the surface of Kashmiri jamawars, textiles woven from pashm (goat hair) and traded around the globe.
Pashm into Pashmina
A Shaul Goat, ca.1779, Calcutta, opaque watercolor on paper, attributed to ‘Company School’ artist Zayn al-Din from the Impey Album of animals and plants of India. Image Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
Produced in the region between India and Pakistan, Kashmiri pashmina is special for its fine materials and painstaking process. Pashmina is the cloth woven from pashm, the wool of rare Changthangi goats, which live high in the Himalayan mountains. From hand-combing the fibers to spinning the yarn and making the fabric in a fine kani weave, the process of creating a length of pashmina contains a history of arduous effort undertaken by generations of Kashmiri craftspeople. Pashmina’s softness and its immense utility in harsh cold make it a material coveted by many. Pashmina patterns changed with Mughal expansion in the 1500s and later with British colonialism. With each new group of people who called the South Asian subcontinent home, Kashmiri weaving evolved, while remaining rooted in a wildly arabesque aesthetic.
Conversations between Persia and Kashmir
Portrait of Sayyid Mirza Azim Beg, the Jagirdar (landowner) of Hansi, draped in a Kashmiri shawl, 1820-1825, att ributed to Ghulam Ali Khan, opaque watercolor on paper. Image Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
The confluence of artistic traditions contained in the evolution of jamawar textiles makes them a poignant locus for investigating how cultures and histories from all around the world intersected in South Asia. The floral motifs found in jamawars testify to the passion and love that both the Mughals and the Persians shared for the garden and all things natural. Dense Persian imagery, as defined by Mughal tastes, was incorporated into pashminas. This posed a design challenge for the Kashmiri weavers, who historically made tapestries.
Kashmiri craftspeople spend years working collaboratively in independent workshops to make a single length of jamawar. Instead of embroidering or brocading floral patterns onto a continuous ground, weavers use the kani weave. In this laborious tapestry-weaving technique, colored yarns are woven into the pattern area and interconnected with neighboring yarns, increasing the strength and structural integrity of the fabric. This process makes jamawar fabrics unusually lightweight, despite the extravagance and opulence of their designs. Although jamawars are still handwoven in Kashmir today, mechanically produced facsimiles of the fabric are now much more popular due to their significantly lower prices.
The story of the jamawar’s influence in the Kashmir valley, and on the topography of the pashmina, is only a partial narrative—its reach was much wider. New design sensibilities and techniques were integrated into the weaves of other textiles across the South Asian subcontinent. Through travel and trade, this new craft found its way back to Persia.
Forms the Jamawar Takes
Portrait of Ishwari Sen of Mandi with an orange Kashmiri shawl worn as a patka (belt) and draped over the arm ca.1825, opaque watercolor on paper. Image Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
Beginning in Persia, the jamawar was wrapped along the axis of the body as a choga (an open coat, usually for men), a patka (sash), or a dastar (turban). When it traveled to South Asia, the jamawar was worn not only as clothing expressing the wealth and high status of royal patrons of the Mughal courts, but also as shawls that held the same social weight as more elaborate garments.
Jamawars provide great warmth to the wearer while signifying immense wealth—qualities that continue to keep these vibrant textiles popular across the South Asian subcontinent. Today the traditional practice of weaving jamawars is a dying craft practiced by a select few. This versatile textile continues to be redefined by contemporary designers who are exploring what it means to be clad in a jamawar.
The following illustrates the various uses of the Jamawar through its history.
Choga (Man’s Robe), Kashmiri, late 1800s
Pashm (goat hair) kani weave (double interlocking twill tapestry weave)
Bequest of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich 55.263
This densely patterned open coat is an example of a Kashmiri woven jamawar textile fashioned into a garment. Adorned here with an all-over pattern of ambis (mango-shaped motifs), pomegranates, and flowers, the choga was a robe popularized in the Mughal courts of South Asia. The presence of flowers from the Persian landscape, including tulips, irises, and lilies, indicates a design migration between Persia and South Asia. Jamawars were typically woven in Kashmir and assembled into exquisite garments in Persia. While this garment might have been made for a South Asian patron, its Persian aesthetics make it a rich example of cultural and material exchange.
JAMAWAR AS YARDAGE
Jamawar Length, Kashmiri, late 1800s
Pashm (goat hair) kani weave (double interlocking twill tapestry weave)
Bequest of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich 55.329
This striking length of jamawar fabric presents a lattice arrangement of stylized floral motifs—primarily carnations splayed in the Afghan style. Two pieces have been carefully sewn together here, with a pallu (border) on one end and an unfinished edge on the other. A signature, as yet undeciphered but presumably in an Indo-Iranian language, can be seen on the left, below the pallu. This length was made for constructing garments. The thin pallu was perhaps intended to delineate a garment’s center opening or lower edge. Use of the pallu as a demarcating border in clothing design was common practice. It also can be seen in the center opening in the previously pictured jamawar choga.
JAMAWAR AS THE MATAN OF A SHAWL
Jamawar Length (Perhaps the Matan of a Shawl), Kashmiri, early 1800s
Pashm (goat hair) kani weave (double interlocking twill tapestry weave)
Bequest of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich 55.336
The undyed ivory ground of this lightweight jamawar textile length is unusual. Poppy flowers uniformly repeat in a half-drop continuous pattern reminiscent of Kashmiri matandar shawls, which employ the density of jamawar design not only in the pallu (border) but also in the matan (central field). Because jamawars used for clothing do not usually repeat a single motif, it is unclear whether this textile was made as yardage for a garment or intended to be the garment itself. A signature that closely resembles the Indic swastika—an ancient, life-affirming symbol—can be found in the lower left corner. Embroidered above is a more ornate gold signature (presumably of a trader), currently untranslated from Arabic or Urdu.
JAMAWAR AS SHAWL
Jamawar Shawl, late 1800s–early 1900s
Pashm (goat hair) kani weave (double interlocking twill tapestry weave)
Bequest of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich 55.332
This jamawar is an assemblage of five different pieces of fabric. The length of this textile indicates it was worn as a shawl, though it is possible it was originally intended to be made into a tailored garment. An ovoid pattern with distinct botehs (floral bouquets) dominates its vibrant matan (central field). The multicolored fringe tabs suggest the finishing technique used for European cashmere shawls manufactured on jacquard looms. However, this fringe features floral bouquets embroidered in the Kashmiri sozni style typical of dorukha palledar (double-faced shawl). The fringe, bright colors, and sinuous floral motifs echo the early 20th-century aesthetics of jamawars produced in the Greater Punjab region.
JAMAWAR AS A PATKA
Patka (Sash), Persian, 1840–1875
Silk-wrapped and gold-wrapped thread compound weave; continuous and discontinuous supplementary weft patterning
Bequest of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich 55.529
This sash, or patka, is a prime example of the grandeur of jamawar textiles. Patkas displayed wealth and status, especially for Persian and Mughal men, who tucked daggers and other material symbols of power and wealth into them. Patkas were usually wrapped around the waist two or three times and worn over a jama (coat). As a jamawar that was not woven in Kashmir but in Persia, this textile narrates a story of trade. Its gold silk ground shimmers, densely overlaid with floral designs contained within the ambi (mango-shaped motif). Westernized paisley motifs derive from the ambi.