AN INDIAN EMBROIDERED TEXTILE MADE FOR THE PORTUGUESE MARKET Bengal, India, 17th Century A rare and fine Indo-Portuguese textile, with elaborate embroidered decoration, the central panel with a scalloped roundel centered by a tulip cartouche with two birds and scrolling floral decoration and surrounded with eight alternately double-headed eagles and double-headed doves, each with arrow-pierced hearts above their heads, and around this design can be found a variety of animals including deer, leopards, lions, crowned birds, winged angel heads (cherubim) and four European hunters with raised rifles, the corners of the large central rectangle with elaborate cartouches, and all surrounded at the edge with a border design of conjoined scrolls with pipe-smoking human heads at the terminals and divided by vases of flowers. 102in (260cm) x 76in (193cm) Footnotes: 十七世紀 印度孟加拉 大件為葡萄牙市場所製刺綉 Published Cohen & Cohen, Think Pink!, Antwerp, 2013, pp. 100-101, no. 66 Exhibited: Casa Museu Dr Anastacio Goncalves, Lisbon, Uma familia de coleccionadores, Poder e Cultura, no. 62 and possibly earlier acquired by D. Frederico Guilherme Sousa e Holstein (1737-1790), Governor of India (1779-1786) 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Think Pink!》，安特衛普，2013年，頁100-101，圖版編號66 展覽： 里斯本Casa Museu Dr Anastacio Goncalves，《Uma familia de coleccionadores, Poder e Cultura》，圖版編號62，並或爲印度總督D. Frederico Guilherme Sousa e Holstein (1737-1790)所購 The Portuguese established a colony in Bengal around 1537 and by 1570 were exporting quantities of embroidered textiles, known as calchas, to Europe. The embroidered designs include decorative motifs borrowed from both the Indian and European tradition. They include features of Italianate Renaissance origin and also motifs from 16th century Spanish and Portuguese art such as the double-headed eagle, as well as hunting scenes. Several styles of the Bengal work are recorded, and this appears to be kashida, worked in chain stitch and using muga or tussur silk. Usually, kashida embroideries are monochrome, so this (and lot 116) are very rare and unusual in using polychrome silk and cotton panels. Among the sixty-four kalas (arts) mentioned in the Kamasutra is that of vastuvidya, anything made skillfully, which includes viracana, the making of quilts and covers often with embroidery. (see Teotónio R. de Souza, Ed. 1985, Indo-Portuguese History: Old Issues, New Questions, p. 136 (in Chapter 12: Indian Textiles in Portuguese Collections, by Lotika Varadarajan) Another member of the Sousa famiy, Archbishop Braga D. Luís de Sousa (1637-1690), was Portuguese Ambassador to Rome between 1675 and 1682 and is recorded as having Indian textiles in one room in his 'sumptiously furnished palace' (Karl 2016, p. 72)- which might possibly have been these examples. References: Karl, Barbara 2016, Embroidered Histories, Indian Textiles for the Portuguese Market during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Wien Köln Weimar: Böhlau Verlag) p. 72.