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"When a rich man in seventeenth-century South Asia enjoyed a peaceful night's sleep, he imagined himself enveloped in a velvet sleep. In the poetic imagination of the time, the fine dew of early evening was like a thin cotton cloth from Bengal, and woolen shawls of downy pashmina sent by the Mughal emperors to their trusted noblemen approximated the soft hand of the ruler on the vassal's shoulder. Textiles in seventeenth-century South Asia represented more than cloth to their makers and users. They simulated sensory experience, from natural, environmental conditions to intimate, personal touch. The Art of Cloth in Mughal India is the first art historical account of South Asian textiles from the early modern era. Author Sylvia Houghteling resurrects a truth that seventeenth-century world citizens knew, but which has been forgotten in the modern era: South Asian cloth ranked among the highest forms of art in the global hierarchy of luxury goods, and had a major impact on culture and communication. While studies abound in economic history about the global trade in Indian textiles that flourished from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, they rarely engage with the material itself and are less concerned with the artistic-and much less the literary and social-significance of the taste for cloth. This book is richly illustrated with images of textiles, garments, and paintings that are held in little-known collections and have rarely, if ever, been published. Rather than rely solely on records of European trading companies, Houghteling draws upon poetry in local languages and integrates archival research from unpublished royal Indian inventories to tell a new history of this material culture, one with a far more balanced view of its manufacture and use, as well as its purchase and trade"--

Textile fabrics, Mogul Empire. --- Art, Asian. --- Aesthetic Theory. --- Akbar. --- Aligarh Muslim University. --- Antheraea assamensis. --- Archival research. --- Art history. --- Aurangzeb. --- Backstitch. --- Bandar Abbas. --- Bengal Sultanate. --- Bequest. --- Brahmin. --- Braj Bhasha. --- Broadcloth. --- Brocade. --- Calico Museum of Textiles. --- Carpet. --- Central Asia. --- Chintz. --- Coat of arms. --- Colonial empire. --- Cotton gin. --- Crêpe (textile). --- Deccan sultanates. --- Dress code. --- Dyeing. --- Embroidery stitch. --- Eri silk. --- Finery (company). --- Floral design. --- Fritillaria imperialis. --- Gouache. --- Gujarat Sultanate. --- Gujarat. --- Hampton Court Palace. --- Handkerchief. --- Hindi literature. --- Hindu mythology. --- Hindu temple. --- Hindu. --- Imperial State. --- Indian art. --- Islamic art. --- Jahangir. --- Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. --- Knot. --- Lacquerware. --- Ladakh. --- Livery. --- Mahatma Gandhi. --- Mandapa. --- Maratha (Uttar Pradesh). --- Mechanization. --- Metropolitan Museum of Art. --- Ming dynasty. --- Mughal Empire. --- Mughal architecture. --- Mughal clothing. --- Mughal emperors. --- Mughal gardens. --- Mughal painting. --- Muslin. --- Pashmina. --- Persian carpet. --- Persian gardens. --- Quilt. --- Quilting. --- Rahul Jain. --- Rajput painting. --- Rajput. --- Royal Household. --- Safavid art. --- Safavid dynasty. --- Sanjay Subrahmanyam. --- Sanskrit literature. --- Sanskrit. --- Satin. --- Sawai (title). --- Sericulture. --- Shah Jahan. --- Shah Shuja (Mughal prince). --- Silk Road. --- Silk waste. --- Silk. --- Spinning (textiles). --- Sumptuary law. --- Textile industry. --- Textile manufacturing. --- Textile printing. --- Textile. --- Tie-dye. --- Trading company. --- Turban. --- Velvet. --- Victoria and Albert Museum. --- Visual arts. --- Vizier. --- Woolen. --- Woven fabric. --- Yale University Art Gallery.