Throughout the centuries the Indian Ocean has served as a transregional network facilitating the circulation of Indian textiles to locations as far away as Southeast Asia, Central and East Asia, and East Africa. Western India, mainly the province of Gujarat, emerged as a production center for vibrantly dyed and block-printed textiles as early as 3500 BCE in sites near the Indus Valley. Written records of the Roman period reveal that the light weight and breathability of Indian cottons was favored for comfort and aesthetic appeal. Later, during the medieval period, Gujarat’s processing of raw material such as cotton—a scarce commodity—and the development of organic dyes created a demand for these textiles in places linked to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, especially Egypt. For years the relationship between these two areas was not fully explored, but the excavation of numerous fragments in the early twentieth century in Egypt, where they had survived in quantity, prompted the study of the connection between these two regions. Often referred to as “Indo-Egyptian” or “Fustat fragments,” these transcultural textiles can be regarded as visual documents of the medieval Red Sea littoral landscape.
Excavations during the 1920s and 1930s unearthed a great number of Gujarati textile fragments in Egypt that had survived due to the region’s arid climate. These fabrics would have deteriorated or been destroyed in the monsoon-heavy and water-dense climates of South and Southeast Asia. After excavation, these fragments were widely distributed across the globe and made their way into museum and private art collections. Their transformation into collectible objects was driven by a heightened interest in Islamic decorative arts during the time. The Met’s fragments were acquired in 1930 by Maurice Dimand, curator emeritus of Near Eastern art. Unfortunately, the exact excavation site has not been identified since the fragments were largely purchased on the art market. Most were found near grave sites and treasuries around Fustat (Old Cairo), which served as a dumping ground for discarded textiles after the twelfth century. Administrative records known as the “Genizah Documents” (written in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic) found in the Genizah Synagogue in Fustat provide written evidence of the textile trade between Gujarat and Egypt from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries.
Textile production in Gujarat continued into the nineteenth century, when industrial textile mills eventually replaced traditional looms. In more recent years in India, attempts have been made to revive past techniques and reproduce the unique characteristics of these textiles, which performed a range of functions—from luxury items, like funerary cloths, to fabrics of more general and everyday use, such as pillow covers and clothing.
Cotton textiles have been produced and exchanged for thousands of years, and the Indo-Egyptian type represents a small portion of a longer global lineage of textile history and trade. Gujarat had two separate workshops during the medieval period. One was responsible for forming raw cotton into barrels of woven fabric, which included processes of ginning, baling, and spinning. These barrels were then transferred to a second workshop where dyeing and block-printing processes occurred. The deep red tones found in many of the fragments (30.112.29) were achieved by using a strong alum mordant: a substance used to fix the dye to the cloth’s fiber. This was followed by the application of a reddish madder dye, which allowed the dye to bond or stick to the cloth. Madder dyes in Gujarat were often extracted from the organic plant materials of the Indian mulberry or dyer’s madder, sometimes a combination of the two (30.112.33).
The resist-dye technique was used to create dark blue and indigo tones in textile designs (30.112.38). The term “resist” indicates that a portion of the fabric was withheld from the larger indigo bath in which the fabric was submerged. The resist was often applied to the block-print itself, which produced a striking contrast between the deep indigo tones and the fabric’s white background (30.112.40). Only a few fragments employing a combination of madder and resist-dye techniques with bold polychrome designs have survived (30.112.42).
The decorative motifs on these textiles are striking and speak to a broader lineage of ornamentation that occurred in medieval Gujarat. Many emulate designs found in Jain book arts and architecture likewise produced in Gujarat. Several fragments bear vegetal and floral motifs, such as interlinking tendril patterns and rosettes, which resemble those found in Jain architectural facades and portals (30.112.39; 30.112.37). Other textile motifs found in Jain manuscripts include trifoliate, pointed leaves and medallions (30.112.25). Designs inspired by Islamic tomb architecture of Gujarat from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, which also borrowed heavily from Jain visual sources, further connect these textiles to the larger built environment. A comparison of woodblock-printing methods used in producing these textiles and stonemasonry techniques found in architecture and tomb stelae further display intriguing affinities in the way textile designs and architecture manipulate positive and negative spaces to create stunning visual effects.
Decorations on several examples in the Museum’s collection are drawn from visual sources other than Jain antecedents linked to Gujarat. For example, the ornamental features of one fragment (30.112.28) resemble luxury woven fabrics found in the silks from Ilkhanid Iran and Mamluk Egypt during the fourteenth century. Another example (30.112.34) demonstrates stylistic affinities with Chinese silks of the Yuan period (ca. 1271–1368) that feature frontal-facing lotus flowers. The border of this textile features a repeated square-and-star pattern that reflects Gujarati designs seen in tie-dye cloths (known as bandani). The wavy lotus pattern often used on Chinese storage jars found in Iran reflects the transregional dissemination of designs across geographies, especially during the fifteenth century. Lastly, one fragment (30.112.23), which was possibly made on the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, employs both block-printed and painted techniques, indicating the dissemination of this technique to various regions of South Asia and the broader connection of this collection of textiles to the Indian Ocean at large. As portable visual “documents,” these fragments complicate the classification of—and add a fascinating layer to—the repertoire of ornament associated with the arts of the region.