Heirloom textile with repeated design of a woman and her attendants

This textile, produced in Gujarat, India, was collected in the Toraja region of Sulawesi, one of the Sunda islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Along the centuries-old trade routes of Southeast Asia, precious textiles from South Asia were exchanged for rare spices as well as forest and sea products.

This cloth was block-printed and resist- and mordant-dyed on hand-spun cotton. The design, repeated over two registers, depicts an elaborately dressed woman with a parrot; she is accompanied by attendants. Above the figures are parasols and geese. The subject and the drawing style both relate to the painting tradition of the Jain religion in western India. Because of India’s hot and humid climate, along with the practice of reusing old fabrics, relatively few early textiles survive.