NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1845

While the square shawl (rumal) was worn most commonly by women, the long shawl (dochalla), characterised by its rectangular shape, was particularly favoured by men and was worn draped over the shoulder or around the body for warmth. The decorative repertoire of long shawls of the Sikh period have been divided into the ‘classic’ and the ‘modern’ (Frank Ames, The Kashmir Shawl and its Indo-French Influence, Suffolk, 1997, p.56). Whereas the design of the former was confined to narrower pallas (borders), in the modern group, as shown by the present shawl, more expressive design patterns covered a larger surface of the shawl (ibid., p.57). For closely comparable shoulder mantles of this type, see ibid., colour pls. 202-204, pp.338-339.
Post Lot Text
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