A 19th century prayer cloth, or jainamaz
Circa 1850-1880, Machilipatnam (Coromandel Coast), or Isfahan.
The fine cotton block-printed, mordant and resist dyed, and finished with kalamkari work. With an architectural design of a prayer arch, or mihrab, decorated with trailing flowers on an ochre ground above a central field set with poppies, flanked by cypress trees and beneath a row of ‘onion’ domes, the lower border with interlocking palmettes. The cartouche above the arch, and another, smaller, at the top of the central field, both bear the inscription ‘subhana bi-rabbi al-a’la wa bi hamdihi’ (Glory to the Lord most high and praise to him), above an unclear date. With the original backing of printed cotton with a design of palmettes, bells and botehs on a white ground, and a metal French customs tag, stamped ‘Douane’, and ‘Paris’.
Cloths of this type were originally produced in Machilipatnam, the longstanding centre of production for printed, dyed, and kalamkari cottons in the south-east Indian coastal state of Andhra Pradesh, for – with appropriate variations to the design - export to the Muslim markets of Persia and Indonesia. Subsequent to the collapse of the Iranian textile industry in the middle of the 19th century, which had been caused by an overwhelming influx of cheaper textile imports from, in particular, India, Britain, and Russia, attempts were made to establish indigenous textile production on a firmer footing, and it has been thought that many of these cloths dating from the second half of the century were created in Isfahan. However, it is hard to determine how successful the attempts to protect the enterprises could have been, as existing treaties imposed a uniform import tariff of 5 percent, ensuring that Iran could not introduce high import tariff barriers. This being the case, it may be that the import from India of cotton textiles such as this continued with little abatement, and that the present cloth was made on he Coromandel Coast. In either case, it is reasonable to infer the active involvement of the Armenian communities that were present in both Machilipatnam and Isfahan, as makers of, and traders, in textiles of this type.
The term ‘kalamkari’ is a juxtaposition of the Persian words ‘kalam’ and ‘kari’, respectively denoting ‘pen’ and ‘craftsmanship’. In the Machilipatnam technique of kalamkari production, by which this textile was created, the complex process of rendering the design is finished with the bamboo kalam.
A prayer cloth of similar design can be seen in the collection of the V & A, accession no. 85-1889
With a small area of abrasion to the cotton, shown here in the final photograph below.
139.5cm (55”) high and 92cm (36¼”) wide.
