Motif from Kashmir Shawl: Gooleeanar (Pomegranate Color), No. 22, Hindoostan

One of group of eight textile designs made in Kashmir and sent to England in 1823 by British trader, William Moorcroft for use in the shawl making industry. These textile designs are the only surviving from a group of 34 drawings he sent, as part of his personal interesr in making British shawls supreme over all competitors. They are all painted on paper in brilliant colored gouache and varnished. Each shows a large stylized Paisley "cone" set in a field and are signed on the verso "William Moorcroft, Kashmeer, 1823", numbered, inscribed with the color of the ground in Kashmiri vernacular, and, on all but two, with the name and country of the person who commissioned the original shawl. In England, they would have been translated to graph paper to create mise-en-cartes for the guidance of a weaver.

This design, titled "Gooleeanar [pomegranate color]", contains a large paisley "cone" decorated with scrolling branches with stylized flowers and leaves. The lower part of the cone is decorated with a stylized flower in the center, with petals colored with shades of red and green, framed by a group of small white leaves that form a circle around the flower. From it emerge scrolling red branches with stylized paisley leaves, colored with green and either red or purple. Above these scrollin branches, the cone is framed by a strip of white stylized flowers, and contains an internal paisley cone, placed to the left side of the larger cone, made up of rosettes with either white or blue petals and bordered with a thin gatland with stylized flowers with petals colored with black and shades of purple. This inner cone is also framed to the right by a garland of green leaves and small rosettes with blue petals and another garland of stylized black and purple flowers and leaves. The large cone is bordered with red and is decorated on the bottom by a garland with green leaves and alternating half-rosettes with red petals. The outside of the paisley cone is filled with garlands with leaves and stylized flowers of the same kind as those inside the cone.