Enfilade

Distributed for the Royal Asiatic Society by Yale UP:

James Tod and Norbert Peabody, with contributions by Brian Cannon and Ramya Sreenivasan, Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024), 1728 pages, ISBN: 978-0300270525, $1,000.

The two volumes of James Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han, first published in 1829–32, remain to this day the first port of call for anyone interested in the history and culture of Rajasthan and the early colonial encounter in India. Written by the first East India Company official to the region, the text was also seminal for the early figures in India’s independence movement who reworked Tod’s imagined ancient Rajput national identities into a call for India’s national liberation from British colonial rule. Now available in a numbered limited edition of 750 copies, this re-issue of the original text including over 80 original copperplate engravings, woodblock prints, and lithographs returns the text to its original state, while the accompanying companion volume critically reframes this monumental, but often misunderstood, work. The new volume shows how Tod’s Annals is not merely the product of the singular voice of a Western ‘orientalist’ imagination, instead revealing a richly complex work in which Rajasthani voices provide a ‘multi-authored’ heterogeneity to the text which is often discordant and unpredictable. Re-articulating the variety of voices that simultaneously inhabit Tod’s Annals, the revised volume argues for a more conjunctural, contingent, and open-ended reading of colonial history.

Norbert Peabody is an affiliated scholar at the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. Ramya Sreenivasan is associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. Brian Cannon is a PhD student in South Asian history at the University of Pennsylvania.

This publication is one of the outcomes of the research project The India Museum Revisited, which aims to reconstruct the museum’s history (c.1800–1879) with special reference to V&A’s collection. From the V&A’s description of the project:

At the dispersal of the India Museum in 1879 the 20,000 objects transferred to the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A) were inventoried in a catalogue printed for internal use in the following year. That list forms the basis of the analysis and reconstruction presented here, augmented where appropriate by objects surviving in the collections, in order to reunite the contents and their supporting documentation in virtual form and to set them in context.

From UCL Press (and note that digital copies of the book are available free of charge) . . .

Arthur MacGregor, The India Museum Revisited (London: UCL Press, 2023), 472 pages, ISBN: 978-1800085725 (hardback), £60 / ISBN: 978-1800085718 (paperback) £45 / ISBN: 978-1800085701 (PDF file), free.

The museum of the East India Company formed, for a large part of the nineteenth century, one of the sights of London. In recent years, little has been remembered of it beyond its mere existence, while an assumed negative role has been widely attributed to it on the basis of its position at the heart of one of Britain’s arch-colonialist enterprises. Extensively illustrated, The India Museum Revisited provides a full examination of the museum’s founding manifesto and evolving ambitions. It surveys the contents of its multi-faceted collections—with respect to materials, their manufacture and original functions on the Indian sub-continent—as well as the collectors who gathered them and the manner in which they were mobilized to various ends within the museum. From this integrated treatment of documentary and material sources, a more accurate, rounded and nuanced picture emerges of an institution that contributed in major ways, over a period of 80 years, to the representation of India for a European audience, not only in Britain but through the museum’s involvement in the international exposition movement to audiences on the continent and beyond.

Arthur MacGregor is Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Professor at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Research Institute.

c o n t e n t s

Foreword by Tristram Hunt
Preface
Acknowledgements
The India Museum Revisited Project

Part I | Historical Introduction
1  An ‘Oriental Museum’ at the India House
2  The Objects Themselves: Restoring an Identity to the Collections

Part II | The Collections of the India Museum
3  Historical Relics: Their Role in the Collection
4  Trading with and within India: Material Culture of Commerce and Control
5  Industry and Technology: Inorganic Materials
6  Industry and Technology: Organic Materials
7  The Mirror of India: Clothing, Dress, and Ornament
8  Making War: Weapons and Defensive Armour
9  Religious Observation: Introducing Indian Devotional Practice
10  Culture and Recreation
11  Imaging India
12  Collections of Individuals and the Emergence of Ethnography
13  The India Museum (partly) Recollected

Appendix: Glossary of Indigenous Terms as Transcribed in the Catalogue of 1880
Bibliography
Index

From Princeton UP:

Sylvia Houghteling, The Art of Cloth in Mughal India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-0691215785, £58 / $68.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a vast array of textiles circulated throughout the Mughal Empire. Made from rare fibers and crafted using virtuosic techniques, these exquisite objects animated early modern experience, from the intimate, sensory pleasure of garments to the monumentality of imperial tents. The Art of Cloth in Mughal India tells the story of textiles crafted and collected across South Asia and beyond, illuminating how cloth participated in political negotiations, social conversations, and the shared seasonal rhythms of the year. Drawing on small-scale paintings, popular poetry, chronicle histories, and royal inventory records, Sylvia Houghteling charts the travels of textiles from the Mughal imperial court to the kingdoms of Rajasthan, the Deccan sultanates, and the British Isles. She shows how the ‘art of cloth’ encompassed both the making of textiles as well as their creative uses. Houghteling asks what cloth made its wearers feel, how it acted in space, and what images and memories it conjured in the mind. She reveals how woven objects began to evoke the natural environment, convey political and personal meaning, and span the distance between faraway people and places. Beautifully illustrated, The Art of Cloth in Mughal India offers an incomparable account of the aesthetics and techniques of cloth and cloth making and the ways that textiles shaped the social, political, religious, and aesthetic life of early modern South Asia.

• Winner of the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, College Art Association
• Shortlisted for the R.L. Shep Memorial Book Award, Textile Society of America

Sylvia Houghteling is assistant professor of history of art at Bryn Mawr College.

c o n t e n t s

Note on Transliteration

Introduction
1  Landscapes of Cloth in the Mughal Empire
2  The Tell-Tale Textile: Fabric and Emotions in Mughal Hindustan
3  The Moving Walls of the Amber Court
4  The Fame of Machilipatnam Cloth
5  The Flowering of Mughal Textiles in Britain
Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Image Credits

From PUR:

Aziza Gril-Mariotte, Des étoffes pour le vêtement et la décoration: Vivre en indiennes, France, XVIIIe–XIXe siècle (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2023), 216 pages, ISBN: 978-2753592445, €32.

Retracer une histoire du goût en étudiant l’usage des indiennes dans la mode et la décoration intérieure aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, tel est l’objectif de ce livre. Il montre comment les manufacturiers ont participé à l’essor d’une société consumériste où la question des modes et des couleurs est indissociable du développement d’une industrie textile. En appréhendant des pratiques vestimentaires et décoratives sur deux siècles, les phénomènes de recyclages, de renouvellement ainsi que de permanence de certains décors sont analysés à la lumière de la fascination que le XVIIIe siècle exerça sur la société du XIXe siècle. Dans la parure vestimentaire, l’usage des indiennes raconte la diffusion dans la société de pratiques longtemps réservées aux élites et la capacité des industriels à se renouveler pour accompagner l’essor de la consommation des étoffes, depuis les marchandes de mode jusqu’aux grands magasins. La question de la place des cotonnades dans la décoration intérieure offre un point de vue renouvelé sur le rôle des étoffes dans l’embellissement du cadre de vie qui perdure et se développe au XIXe siècle en participant au concept des styles historiques.

Avec le soutien de la Fondation Jeanne et Pierre Spiegel et du laboratoire CRESAT de l’université Haute-Alsace.

Aziza Gril-Mariotte est professeur des universités en histoire de l’art moderne à Aix-Marseille université et chercheuse à l’UMR TELEMMe. Elle a présidé le musée de l’Impression sur étoffes entre 2019 et 2022. Actuellement, elle dirige le musée des Tissus et des arts décoratifs de Lyon. Ses travaux portent sur la création et l’innovation dans l’industrie textile aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, ainsi que sur les phénomènes de muséification et de patrimonialisation des étoffes depuis le XIXe siècle.

s o m m a i r e

I. Des indiennes aux étoffes, définir l’objet textile
Une nomenclature variée
Une production artistique pour un objet usuel
Des créations pour des usages variés

II. Indiennes et toiles peintes pour la mode
De nouvelles étoffes dans les garde-robes
La fabrique des modes
L’indiennage entre collections annuelles et motifs immuables

III. Les toiles peintes dans les intérieurs
Les étoffes et l’art de vivre à la française
Décorer son intérieur en indienne
Décors et étoffes intemporels

From Bloomsbury:

Julie Wertz, Turkey Red (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2024), 232 pages, ISBN: 978-1350216518 (hardcover), $110 / ISBN: 978-1350216501 (paperback), $37.

This multi-disciplinary study examines the exceptional Turkey red textile dyeing process and product. Prized for its brilliant colour and durability, yet notoriously difficult to produce, the textile was consumed locally and exported around the world. Considered one of the first instances of industrial espionage, the expansion of the Turkey red industry is closely linked to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of a new global economy. Significant technological advances in chemistry and dyeing were motivated by the demands of Turkey red dyers and printers, who were located primarily in the west of Scotland, the north of England, and around Mulhouse, Switzerland.

This book explores the arc of the Turkey red industry, the evolution of the process through key producers and technical developments, the complicated printing process, and finishes with an examination of significant Turkey red collections and a selection of object case studies. The chemistry of the process is described in an accessible, contextual manner, highlighting the significance of the distinctive technique that yielded the best red attainable on cotton. Drawing on both historical and contemporary study, Turkey Red presents significant new research on the material characterisation of this fascinating, eye-catching textile, and offers an in-depth historical example of the global effect of textile consumption.

Julie Wertz is Beal Family Postgraduate Fellow in Conservation Science at Harvard Art Museums.

c o n t e n t s

List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on the Text

Introduction

1  The Most Brilliant Color Dyed on Cotton
1.1  Defining Turkey red
1.1.1  A reputable red
1.1.2  A complicated process
1.2  Identifying Turkey red
1.3  Material record
1.4  Conclusion

2  Global Exchanges and Anthraquinone Dyes
2.1 The origin and dissemination of Turkey red
2.1.1 India
2.1.2 Indonesia
2.1.3 The Levant and the Ottoman Empire
2.1.4 The Hapsburg Empire
2.1.5 France
2.1.6 Britain
2.2 Madder
2.2.1 The cultivation of madder
2.2.2 Madder composition and derivatives
2.3 Synthetic alizarin
2.3.1 Understanding alizarin
2.3.2 Alizarin synthesis and patent disputes
2.3.3 Synthetic alizarin products
2.4 Conclusion

3  The Dyeing, Chemistry, and Technological Advances of Turkey Red
3.1 Oiling
3.1.1 Oiling in the old process
3.1.2 The chemistry of oiled cotton
3.1.3 Ruminant dung and tannins
3.1.4 Turkey red oil and the new process
3.1.5 The Steiner process
3.2 Aluminium
3.2.1 Precipitated aluminium soaps
3.3 Dyeing
3.3.1 Color complexes in Turkey red
3.3.2 Blood and albumen
3.4 Clearing
3.5 Conclusions

4  Printed Turkey Red
4.1 Textile printing methods
4.2 Discharge printing
4.2.1 Lead plate press discharging
4.2.2 Acid paste discharging
4.3 A bright palette
4.3.1 Black, blue, yellow, and green
4.3.2 Identifying colorants on Turkey red prints
4.4 Design
4.4.1 Industrial design and production
4.4.2 European design for the export market
4.5 Conclusions

5  Turkey Red in the Industrial Revolution
5.1 Turkey red industry by country
5.1.1 France
5.1.2 England
5.1.3 Scotland
5.1.4 Switzerland
5.1.5 The Netherlands
5.1.6 North America
5.1.7 Other locations
5.2 Working conditions and labor
5.3 Colonialism
5.4 Conclusions

6  Trade, Use, and Object Record
6.1 Documentary evidence of availability
6.2 How Turkey red was used
6.2.1 Bandanas
6.2.2 Domestic textiles, quilts and bedcovers
6.2.3 Accessories, garments, and tools
6.3 Conclusions

Conclusions

Glossary
References
Index

From Manchester UP (and currently discounted dramatically at Amazon). . . .

Marika Takanishi Knowles, Pierrot and His World: Art, Theatricality, and the Marketplace in France, 1697–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2024), 264 pages, ISBN: 9781526174093, £85 / $130.

Pierrot, a theatrical stock character known by his distinctive costume of loose white tunic and trousers, is a ubiquitous figure in French art and culture. This richly illustrated book offers an account of Pierrot’s recurrence in painting, printmaking, photography and film, tracing this distinctive type from the art of Antoine Watteau to the cinema of Occupied France. As a visual type, Pierrot thrives at the intersection of theatrical and marketplace practices. From Watteau’s Pierrot (c. 1720) and Édouard Manet’s The Old Musician (1862) to Nadar and Adrien Tournachon’s Pierrot the Photographer (1855) and the landmark film Children of Paradise (1945), Pierrot has given artists a medium through which to explore the marketplace as a form for both social life and creative practice. Simultaneously a human figure and a theatrical mask, Pierrot elicits artistic reflection on the representation of personality in the marketplace.

Marika Takanishi Knowles is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
1  Antoine Watteau and the fête marchande
2  Pierrot-co-co
3  New Paris, Old Pierrot (New Pierrot, Old Paris)
4  Nadar Charlatan
5  Old Clothes and the Dreams of the Artist
Conclusion

Index

Part of the Elements in Eighteenth-Century Connections series from Cambridge UP (digital downloads are available for free until 25 January!).

Laura Engel, The Art of the Actress: Fashioning Identities (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2024), 75 pages, ISBN: 978-1009486811 (hardcover), $65 / ISBN: 978-1108977906 (paperback), $22. Also available digitally through Cambridge UP.

The Art of the Actress: Fashioning Identities considers how eighteenth-century visual materials across genres, such as prints, portraits, sculpture, costumes, and accessories, contribute to the understanding of the nuances of female celebrity, fame, notoriety, and scandal. The ‘art’ of the actress refers to the actress represented in visual art, as well as to the actress’s labor and skill in making art ephemerally through performance and tangibly through objects. Moving away from the concept of the ‘actress as muse,’ a relationship that privileges the role of the male artist over the inspirational subject, Laura Engel focuses instead on the varied significance of representations, reproductions, and re-animations of actresses, female artists, and theatrical women across media. Via case studies, this Element explores how the archive charts both a familiar and at times unknown narrative about female performers of the past.

Laura Engel is a Professor in the English Department at Duquesne University, where she specializes in eighteenth-century British literature and theater. She is the author of Women, Performance, and the Material of Memory: The Archival Tourist, 1780–1915 (2019); Austen, Actresses, and Accessories: Much Ado about Muffs (2015); and Fashioning Celebrity: Eighteenth-Century British Actresses and Strategies for Image Making (2011). She also co-edited, with Elaine McGirr, Stage Mothers: Women, Work, and the Theater, 1660–1830 (2014).

c o n t e n t s

Introduction: The Art of the Actress in the Eighteenth Century
1  The Paradox of Pearls
2  The Actress as Artist and the Artist as Actress: Anne Damer and Angelica Kauffman
3  Mary Anne’s Muff: Actresses and Satire
4  Epilogue: Unfinished Business: Elizabeth Inchbald, Lady Cahir, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the Aftermath of the Art of the Actress

References