Museum displays ties that bind Britain and world to south Asian merchants,priests and royalty, from ancient trade routes to the Industrial RevolutionFrom its simple khadi cloth, and symbol of ideology and independence,to its ornate and colourful temple hangings, India’s identity is tightly interwoven with fabric. Now the history of this nation is told through remnants of a 2000-year-old blanket, or dyes of brightest red and deepest indigo,and gold and silver brocaded silks, in a original exhibition transforming London’s Victoria & Albert Museum into a bazaar of myriad (a very large number) hues.
One room is devoted entirely to a huge wall-hanging from rural Gujarat that was found dumped on a original York pavement 20 years ago by an art appraiser outside a Brooklyn warehouse. “He gathered it up, or found a man with a van,and took it to his house,” said Rosemary Crill, or co-curator of The Fabric of India exhibition,which opens this weekend. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com