rajastan-patchwork-detail-1.jpg
The above images give an idea of one of the few items in my collection which has some claim to be exceptional. Quite apart from anything else, I did not buy it from Roger or some other colourful back street dealer, but from a reputable emporium in a genteel English town - a far cry from my usual haunts. I have to add that the assistant told me that in her ten years there she had never seen anything like it (I believed her!) - I suppose because it’s enormous (around 200 x 240 cms or 6.5 feet by 8 feet) and is made entirely of old pieces of fabric - of which more later.
At some point I got this in front of Roger, for an expert appraisal. He tells me - and he has the reputation - that it is made from pieces of old jacket that the women of Rajastan used to embroider during their lives, adding a motif for each major event - marriage, birth of children…?
I have no doubt that this is substantially correct, but there are one or two puzzles for me. First, under what circumstances would these old pieces come together? Do the jackets fall apart and bits are salvaged? Do people get fed up with them because they’re not modern - are out of fashion - and then junk them?
At what point, if any, are foreign buyers involved? Do they commission this kind of work, or do they travel around the villages buying what’s being produced in any case? Or are Indian entrepreneurs, even Indian government export promotion initiatives involved? So many questions and no answers. I’m going to post this on my Indian blog and see if I can get some answers - if so, I’ll add them to this post.
Finally, one last question: why would a group - IS it a group? - of village women suddenly decide to make a really big patchwork, instead of the usual sized ones? Any Rajastanis or Western buyers from India reading this, PLEASE LEAVE SOME ANSWERS if you have any!!
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