Zoomed Vinay Special · First-person editorial
Britain Fined You £5 for Wearing It and France Banned It for 73 Years: The Indian Chemistry Behind the Cloth Europe Feared
Painted cotton from the Coromandel coast held its colours through wash after wash, and Europe struggled to copy it. This Investigation reads the 1742 letter of a French Jesuit who questioned Indian painters, a British botanist's 1795 recipes from the Masulipatam district, the Acts of Parliament that banned the cloth and the radiocarbon tests on medieval fragments. It explains the chemistry step by step and says what each document proves and what it does not.
The point of view
On 18 January 1742 a French Jesuit on the Coromandel coast sat down to explain a mystery to Paris. Indian painted cottons, he wrote, did not lose their brightness in the wash. They looked better. European industry, he added, had "not yet been able to reach" that. He had questioned several Indian cloth-painters, one at a time, and he wrote down every step: a bitter fruit, buffalo milk, iron soaked in palm wine, wax, an indigo vat, alum and a red root from the coastal sand. What were they actually doing, and why could Europe not copy it?
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archive.org
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William Roxburgh, Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, vol. 1 (London, 1795), no. 3, Oldenlandia umbellata, pp. 3–8, — opened in full text; supports: the Telugu and Tamil…
archive.org
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Edward Bancroft, Experimental Researches concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colours, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1814), pp. 211–218, — opened in full text;…
archive.org
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An Act for the more effectuall imploying the Poor by incourageing the Manufactures of this Kingdom, 11 Will
british-history.ac.uk
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An Act to preserve and encourage the woollen and silk manufactures of this kingdom … by prohibiting the use and wear of all printed, painted, stained or dyed callicoes, 7 Geo
archive.org
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John Marshall (ed.), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, vol. 1 (London, 1931), title page and p. 33, and vol. 2, pp. 585–586, — opened in full text; supports:…
archive.org
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Dinabandhu Mitra, Nil Darpan, or The Indigo Planting Mirror, translated "by a Native" (Calcutta: C. H. Manuel, 1861), title page, Introduction and Author's Preface, — opened;…
archive.org
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Sudhi Pradhan (ed.), Nil Durpan or the Indigo Planting Mirror (Calcutta: Eastern Trading Company, 1963), Editorial Note and "Trial of the Rev
archive.org
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Intellectual Property India, State-wise Registered Geographical Indications of India (PDF), Andhra Pradesh entries 28 and 90, and GI Registry application details, and —…
ipindia.gov.in
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Metropolitan Museum of Art, object records 75909 (palampore, acc
metmuseum.org
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Ruth Barnes, Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt: The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford, 1997), online edition, chapters "The collector and his…
jameelcentre.ashmolean.org
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John Irwin and Katharine B. Brett, Origins of Chintz (London: HMSO, 1970), pp. 1, 4 (map caption), 5, 7, 23, 43, 48, and Appendices A–C by P. R. Schwartz, — opened in full…
archive.org
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Aziza Gril-Mariotte, "« L'art de faire l'indienne », savoir théorique ou savoir-faire dans l'Europe des Lumières", Revue du Rhin supérieur 4 (2022), pp. 63–78, — opened in…
ouvroir.fr
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Keiichi Aino et al., "Microbial Communities Associated With Indigo Fermentation That Thrive in Anaerobic Alkaline Environments", Frontiers in Microbiology 9 (2018), art
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Anthony S. Travis, "What a Wonderful Empire is the Organic Chemistry", Bulletin for the History of Chemistry 33.1 (2008), p. 11 (timeline), — opened; supports: 1868 alizarin,…
acshist.scs.illinois.edu
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