The Floral Motif and the Kashmir Shawl during the Reign of Shah Jahan

Art and architecture from the reign of Shah Jahan is well known for its use of floral motifs as a popular form of surface decoration [1]. Since his father Jahangir's love of flowers, recorded on his journeys into Kashmir, the motif became part of a wider visual vocabulary, increasingly found across a number of media. Shah Jahan had travelled with Jahangir, his court, and Nur Jahan in and around the Kashmir Valley. It was from this time that this distant sub-Himalayan territory became a fashionable holiday destination suitable to escape the heat of the Indian plains. It was also from about this time that flowers began to feature more prominently in Mughal courtly arts, no doubt related to the emperor’s recorded experiences with flowers in Kashmir, and not merely from copying European herbal diagrams, whose 'influence' is often overstated and neglects the agency of the Mughals themselves [2].

Though this process began during the reign of Jahangir, it is from the age of Shah Jahan that a wider body of textiles has survived. This corpus of material clearly demonstrates the popularity of the formalised floral motif, by now refined and perfected in a number of textile media, including carpets. This includes also Kashmir shawls, of which a range of extant examples have been rich sources of inspiration for the revival shawls produced by Kashmir Loom at their traditional workshops in Srinagar. This essay will explore the connections between artistic media during the Shah Jahan period in relation to the motif of the formalised blooming plant. It will then look at historic sources of inspiration for revival shawls made by Kashmir Loom, discussing how these models have been used by pashmina weavers today to create new wearable works of art.

Floral motifs decorated a vast range of textiles woven in imperial workshops during Shah Jahan's reign. These included Mughal silk velvets, some of the most expensive and technically difficult fabrics to produce. A number of these exquisite textiles are still extant, mainly from a group associated with the textile stores of Amer fort, a collection studied in depth by scholar Rahul Jain [3]. These panels, thought to arrive as bolts of uncut cloth, were often used to create pardas, curtains to clad permanent architecture, sensorially elevating and animating the surfaces of often newly constructed buildings. A related example, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows a number of different flowers in bloom, each with a bending, animated stalk, introducing movement into the pattern.

IMAGE: Velvet panel with rows of flowers, mid-17th century, attributed to Mughal India, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 1991.347.2 and 30.18. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As well as being used to decorate textiles intended to be hung on permanent stone architecture, similarly controlled, formalised floral designs are also found as permanent flowers on the walls of buildings constructed by Shah Jahan. They are, for instance, carved into the white marble dado of his most well know building, the Taj Mahal, mausoleum of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal on the riverfront in Agra.

IMAGE: The Taj Mahal, Agra. © Jordan Quill

Here, the extraordinary depth captured in each petal is skilfully achieved within an extremely shallow surface, their shadows and contours glowing as the marble captures the changing light of the rising and setting sun.

IMAGE: External dado of the Taj Mahal, Agra. © Jordan Quill

The presence of blooming flowers here could be interpreted as a reference to the paradisical garden, which would make sense for tomb set within a formal Persianate garden. However, the fact that the motif is not limited to funerary settings indicates that its significance lies elsewhere – perhaps, evidence seems to suggest, in inherited memories of family trips to the Kashmir Valley.

IMAGE: Detail, External dado of the Taj Mahal, Agra. © Jordan Quill

Over the river, for example, the motif is found both painted and gilded onto marble panels on the interior of Shah Jahan’s palatial architecture at Agra Fort, for example inside the Khāss Mahal, the emperor’s sleeping quarters. It is also carved into marble on the building’s exteriors, for example on the dadoes of the Diwān-i khāss, the private audience hall.

IMAGE: Painted and gilded flowers inside the Khāss Mahal, Agra Fort, Agra. © Jordan Quill

IMAGE: Carved floral dadoes inside the Diwan-i Khāss, Agra Fort, Agra. © Jordan Quill

Beyond Agra, on the walls of still extant structures within the Lal Qila (Red Fort), in Shahjahanabad in Delhi, floral motifs of a similar kind can also be found, for example carved into the red sandstone walls of the naqqārkhāna (drum house). Such motifs were not limited to the architecture of Shah Jahan, and can also be seen on the carved marble wall decoration inside Amer Fort, in Rajasthan [4]. Their appearance in Agra, Delhi and Amer fort also shows that these motifs were not limited to a specific setting, found in both tombs and palaces.

IMAGE: Detail on the exterior of the naqqārkhāna (drum house), Red Fort, Shahjahanabad. © Jordan Quill

Found across the major architectural commissions of Shah Jahan and beyond, the floral motif encompasses a number of different plants, stylised both symmetrically and asymmetrically. Given the enthusiasm shown by Jahangir for the flowers of Kashmir during his tour of 1620 CE, and the album of flower paintings produced by Ustad Mansur during his visit there, discussed in the previous essay, it is not unreasonable to suggest that these Kashmiri experiences played a crucial role in the beginnings of the popularity of this decorative motif.

As has been shown above, similar designs are found in Mughal silk velvets, and they are also found on other forms of textiles. One example is the poppy motif, found on a group of well-known cotton textiles, including a large poppy floor spread, or ‘summer carpet’, block printed or stencilled with qalamkārī (lit. ‘pen work’) in mordant and resist, possibly made in Burhanpur, c. 1650 CE and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. At almost four metres in length, this complete example and other related textiles have become important sources of inspiration for contemporary textile designers.

IMAGE: Poppy floor spread, or ‘summer carpet’ , mordant and resist on cotton, c. 1650 CE, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. IM.77-1938. © The Victoria and Albert Museum

Arguably the most well known with regard to this motif is the renowned block printer Brigitte Singh, whose workshop in Amer produces some of the finest block-printed cottons available today, using traditional techniques and hand-carved blocks. Made by highly skilled artists, these textiles are produced slowly, and designs are built up with different blocks corresponding to each colour in the design. Produced on a similar scale to the original seventeenth-century poppies, these highly sought after cotton fabrics have become famous globally.

IMAGE: Printing the poppy design onto cotton in the workshops of Brigitte Singh, 2022. © Jordan Quill

IMAGE: Printing the poppy design onto cotton in the workshops of Brigitte Singh, 2022. © Jordan Quill

Kashmir Loom was inspired by the poppy motif from the V&A textile, which Co-Founder Asaf Ali first saw during the Fabric of India exhibition in 2015. One of their classical shawls shows similar blooming red poppies, their designs modified to introduce movement into the motif, and its appearance adapted for weaving in the kani technique. This double-interlocking twill tapestry weave involves the use of multiple wooden sticks wrapped with different colours of spun pashmina threads, slowly woven into one another, one by one, to create a pattern.

IMAGE: Kani Surkh Gulab Palledar Kuklihut Shawl, 137x274 cms, by Kashmir Loom

The translation of a motif originally produced using block printing or stencilling with hand painted details onto cotton, into the technically complex tapestry weaving technique used in the production of the pashmina shawl, demonstrates the exceptional skill of the pashmina weavers. Not only has the motif been translated from cotton to pashmina, and from painting to weaving, but its design has also been adapted and developed during the translation process, creating something entirely new but rooted in centuries of tradition.

Another shawl by Kashmir Loom is also based on the design of a stencilled and painted cotton textile of the late seventeenth-early eighteenth century, probably from Burhanpur and now also in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

IMAGE: Patka (sash), mordant and resist on cotton, probably from Burhanpur, late 17th century-early 18th century CE, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. IS.100-1948. © The Victoria and Albert Museum

However, this time, the Kashmir Loom pashmina shawl has been decorated using embroidery, rather than the designs being woven integrally using the kani technique. This has allowed for this complex design to be flawlessly rendered in silk threads, without the complex technical restrictions imposed by the kani method of weaving.

IMAGE: Brimposh Palledar Ivory Shawl with Sozni hand-embroidery, 137x274 cms, by Kashmir Loom

This essay will now focus on two historic examples of Kashmir Shawls from the seventeenth century, whose designs have inspired those of Kashmir Loom, now, as well as originally, made using pashmina fibre. Unlike the two historic models discussed above, whose base is made of woven cotton, the Pashmina fibre has come from much further afield. Woven with the soft under hair of the pashmina goat from the Changthang (བྱང་ཐང་) region of Western Tibet and parts of Ladakh, this luxurious cloth was incredibly soft, and made of the most thermally efficient fibre on earth.

One detail of a fragment of a long shawl or patka, woven of pashmina fibre and now in the Musée Guimet in Paris dates to the turn of the eighteenth century [5]. Salmon pink buds at different stages of bloom cover each formalised flowering plant, and stand on a sage green background, bordered in yellow strips filled with pink blossoms.

IMAGE: Detail, fragment of a long shawl or patka, pashmina fibre, c. 1700 CE, Musée Guimet, Paris. MA11087, AEDTA3211. © Thierry Ollivier

This pattern, produced using the kani weaving process, has been recreated by Kashmir Loom using a black field. The historic design has been closely adhered to, innovation lying instead in the colour palette. The method of kani weaving has been skilfully utilised to create a design as intricate as the original.

IMAGE: Kani Mirza Palledar Scarf, 50x200 cms, by Kashmir Loom

In contrast to this example, the floral motif is also found in a more stylised, symmetrical arrangement, such as in another seventeenth-century shawl fragment illustrated by Frank Ames in his book The Kashmir Shawl and its Indo-French Influence (The Antique Collectors’ Club, 1997) [6]. Here, red and orange flowers are more densely arranged, with rows of rigidly described green leaves at the plants’ roots.

IMAGE: Patka fragment, pashmina, seventeenth century. © Frank Ames

The blossoms shown on the borders of the shawl are equally well described, perfectly framing the row of stylised blossoming plants. As with the previous example, these patterns are made using the kani method of weaving.

IMAGE: Kani Mirza Palledar Scarf, 50x200 cms, by Kashmir Loom

Again, the designs on this historic fragment have been used as a source of inspiration by Kashmir Loom, who have taken the motif of the flowering plant and translated it into a modern, timeless design. As with the previous example, these motifs have been immersed into a different richlycoloured ground, this time yellow, transforming the model into something completely new but rooted in centuries of tradition and artistic innovation.

The reign of Shah Jahan saw the floral motif used across media, from the walls of his buildings, to the shawls of his court. These timeless designs have become synonymous with Mughal aesthetic style and continue to inspire innovation to this day, informed by centuries of learning, development, and inspiration.

This article is the second in a research series by author Jordan Quill for the Kashmir Loom Journal. Part 1 explores the connection between Jahangir's deep fascination with Himalayan flora and early Mughal-era Kashmir shawls.

Citation

[1] See, for example, Ebba Koch, ‘Flowers in Mughal Architecture,’ Marg 70 no. 2 (2018): 24-33.
[2] Janet Rizvi and Monisha Ahmed, Pashmina: The Kashmir Shawl and Beyond (The Marg Foundation, 2009), 86. Seen most recently in the 'Great Mughals' exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
[3] See, for example, Rahul Jain, Woven Textiles: Technical Studies and Monograph No.2 - Mughal Velvets in the Collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles (Ahmedabad: Sarabhai Foundation, 2011); Rahul Jain, Textiles & Garments at the Jaipur Court (New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2016), 96-101.
[4] Janet Rizvi and Monisha Ahmed, Pashmina: The Kashmir Shawl and Beyond (The Marg Foundation, 2009), 86.
[5] See also Rizvi and Ahmed, Pashmina: The Kashmir Shawl and Beyond, 88-89.
[6] Frank Ames, The Kashmir shawl and its Indo-French influence (The Antique Collectors’ Club, 1997), 267.

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