Map Shawls of Kashmir: Panoramic Pictorial Perspectives
The unique hand- embroidered map shawls of Kashmir are fascinating for their pictorial depictions of places and people.
Soft to touch, light to drape, promising warmth to the wearer, and making a quiet statement of elegance in their artistic motifs and colours are the hand-woven pashmina shawls from Kashmir. Graced with beautiful hand-woven and/or hand-embroidered motifs in aesthetic colour combinations and wrapping the wearer in warmth as much as style, the pashmina shawl has been a coveted textile for centuries. From flowers and birds to the graceful paisley motifs, every inch of the artistically patterned shawl speaks of the skill of artisans who spare no effort in creating luxurious textiles for discerning patrons.
The Map Shawl
Traditionally, pashmina shawls have been hand-woven from yarns of hand-spun pashm, the soft under-fleece combed from the Capra hircus goats that live in the mountains of Ladakh and the Tibetan Plateau. While there are numerous finely woven and/or embroidered pashmina shawls typically with motifs of sinuous vines and fluid paisleys, there is one design that stands apart. This is the embroidered “map shawl from Kashmir”, a truly fascinating textile, as it portrays a stylized cartographic view of places; extant antique map shawls portray cartographic views of Srinagar, the capital city of Kashmir.
The antique map shawls portray an aerial view of Srinagar rendered as a charming pictorial expression. There are topographical features, people, buildings, flora and fauna, and other elements laid flat on the ground, at times in different directions, creating the impression of a painting from a distance. In the map depicting Srinagar, there are people in boats in the Dal Lake and the Jhelum River; people walking and soldiers marching; people on foot and men on horses and an elephant. There are gardens and lush trees; meandering streets; mosques; homes with people inside; rocky outcrops; birds flying; wooden bridges across the Jhelum River; and more.
On close-quarters the design shows tiny stitches and reveals that the work is in fact a marvellous creation of a skilled designer and skilled embroiderers who have seamlessly integrated the arts of illustration, cartography embroidery to create a unique work of art. All these aspects in fact make the shawl akin a document of the local history and culture even as it takes the traditional art of the pashmina shawl of Kashmir to another level.
A Rare Beauty
Antique map shawls from Kashmir are very rare and little known about. “The earliest known map shawls from Kashmir date to the late 1880s. There are three or four such specimens in the world that we know about”, says Waseem Ahmed hailing from a family of traditional darners. The family is based in New Delhi, and Waseem divides his time between New Delhi, Kashmir and Najibabad (the traditional hub of darners).
Fascinated by the beauty and uniqueness of the map shawl, Waseem spent a year researching the subject and travelled to London (2015-2016) to see the map shawl first hand at the Victoria & Albert Museum. “The shawl depicts a stylized map of Srinagar. It belongs to the Royal Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It is said that the map shawl in the museum was presented to Queen Victoria in the late 19th century. It is surmised that it was embroidered as a gift - representative of the beauty, culture and crafts of Kashmir- rather than for wearing”, says Waseem.
He was completely mesmerized by its beauty, its details and concept. “The shawl was of a twill weave. It was densely patterned with motifs and embroidered with fine darn, satin and stem stitches creating the effect of a weave. The embroidery was done with pashmina yarn. I recognized Srinagar’s famous places – Nishat Garden, Dilshad Garden and Shalimar Garden; Dal Lake and Jhelum River; Hazrat Bal, Jama Masjid and Bulbul Shah Mosque located between Ali Kadal and Naw Kadal; Parade Ground and Shergarhi Palace; Shankaracharya Temple; Hari Parbat Fort; Shah Hamadan Mosque and the Patthar Masjid- embroidered on the map shawl way back in the second half of the 19th century. It is said the shawl took thirty years to embroider! I decided to design and create similar map shawls. It was my ambition to create pashminas that would stand out. And when I saw the map shawl I knew this is what I wished to work on”.
Recreating the Map Shawl
On return, Waseem discussed the map shawl with his father Atiq Ahmed, a fourth generation darner of pashmina shawls who had mastered the art of darning under the guidance of his grandfather. Father and son decided to create a map shawl in collaboration with artisans residing in Ganderbal District in Kashmir.
“My forefathers had been employed by the Mughal rulers to darn shawls and my father considers himself fortunate to carry this rich legacy forward. Our craft of darning and restoration of priceless pashmina shawls has given us knowledge of weaving and embroidery. Meanwhile, in recent years there has been a decline in work related to darning of historical and antique shawls. So we decided to take up designing beautiful, rare shawls and collaborating with artisans in Kashmir. And given the beauty of the map shawl I thought we should recreate the same and share its beauty with the world”, says Waseem.
Around the same time, Waseem had been in touch with textile enthusiast and patron Lavina Baldota, custodian of The Abheraj Baldota Foundation that promotes and preserves Gandhian philosophies and ways of life, Hosapete, Karnataka, India. When he shared his thoughts on the map shawl with her, she spontaneously encouraged him to go ahead with the textile and said she would purchase the work. This gave him the support to go ahead with the concept. Thus, work on it began.
Atiq –being familiar with Srinagar’s landmarks, having images of the map shawl at the V&A Museum, and provided information from his son Waseem- created an illustration for the map shawl based on the original in the museum. This illustration was then transferred on to a pashmina shawl that was hand-woven with hand-spun yarns.
The pashmina shawl was stretched out on a wooden frame placed on the floor, and embroiderers Qasim Ahmed, Azeem Ahmed, and Nadeem Ahmed in Ganderbal District, Kashmir, worked on it for six months embroidering the hundreds of motifs of the illustration to bring it alive. In addition, there are tiny inscriptions of words written in Persian that identify some of the places. The end-panels have fifteen niches with a man holding flowers (in one hand) in each niche. The shawl is 90” by 45”.
The embroidery was rendered in fine chain stitch using a needle with a very fine hook at its tip. It was done with silk threads; some were sourced from Ahmedabad and some were dyed with natural dyes in the workshop. Colours for the motifs were selected as the work progressed. As the work progressed, Waseem kept sending Lavina images of the shawl and colours being selected for the motifs. It was completed in 2018.
After creating the “Map of Srinagar” map shawl, Atiq designed “Gratitude To The Freedom Fighter”, a map shawl depicting India in the context of its freedom movement. It is a pashmina shawl with chain stitch embroidery and hand-painting. It was created by Atiq Ahmed with Qasim Ahmed, Imtiyaz Dar, Fayaz and Farooq Dar from Kashmir in 2022.
The “Gratitude To The Freedom Fighter” and “Map of Srinagar” shawls at Sutr Santati: Then. Now. Next
Lavina found the map shawls fascinating and an ideal textile to convey the textile heritage of Kashmir to the world. The two maps shawls are part of the textiles collection of Sutr Santati: Then. Now. Next. (that translates as ‘the continuity of thread’), an exhibition of specially commissioned Indian textiles so far held at New Delhi, Melbourne and Mumbai. The exhibition was conceived and curated by Lavina. The “Gratitude To The Freedom Fighter” map shawl was exhibited at New Delhi in August 2022 as the exhibition celebrated 75 years of India’s birth as an independent nation. The shawl was also part of the Sutr Santati exhibition held in Melbourne (May-September 2023).
The “Map of Srinagar” shawl is being exhibited at the Mumbai iteration of the exhibition presently showing at NGMA, Mumbai, till 7th January 2024. The shawl, has taken viewers by surprise as it recalled the beauty of the historic map shawl in its design and details, even though its design/embroidery is a lighter version of the original map shawl at the V & A.
The “Map of Srinagar” shawl is neatly hand-embroidered with an interesting innovation: the sections representing the Jhelum River and Dal Lake are hand-painted with blue paint and their waters accentuated by embroidered lines alluding to waves. In addition, a small 10” by 10” (in the kani weaving technique) map shawl was woven. This was displayed to the side of the large hand-embroidered shawl. It took a month to weave. This was the second innovation from Atiq, Waseem and the artisans, as the historical map shawls were embroidered and not woven. The large map shawl and the small woven sample received very appreciative reviews, for their beauty and as images of map shawls have been seen only in books by most and some viewers were not aware of map shawls.
In the past few years, Atiq, Waseem and the artisans have created embroidered map shawls for patrons on order. The shawls for women are 90” by 45”, and for men are 108” by 52”, and they typically take about six months to embroider. They are happy to have recreated the map shawls of Kashmir and played a role in reviving Kashmir’s pashmina heritage. They are fulfilled at creating these unique map shawls that link them with their heritage and culture, and showcase the timeless skills of Kashmir’s artisans to the world.
Lavina Baldota @lavinabaldota
Waseem Ahmed @antiqueshawls
Sutr Santati @santati_then-now-next
Text by Brinda Gill
Images Courtesy of Sutr Santati Team and Waseem Ahmed
Soft to touch, light to drape, promising warmth to the wearer, and making a quiet statement of elegance in their artistic motifs and colours are the hand-woven pashmina shawls from Kashmir. Graced with beautiful hand-woven and/or hand-embroidered motifs in aesthetic colour combinations and wrapping the wearer in warmth as much as style, the pashmina shawl has been a coveted textile for centuries. From flowers and birds to the graceful paisley motifs, every inch of the artistically patterned shawl speaks of the skill of artisans who spare no effort in creating luxurious textiles for discerning patrons.
The Map Shawl
Traditionally, pashmina shawls have been hand-woven from yarns of hand-spun pashm, the soft under-fleece combed from the Capra hircus goats that live in the mountains of Ladakh and the Tibetan Plateau. While there are numerous finely woven and/or embroidered pashmina shawls typically with motifs of sinuous vines and fluid paisleys, there is one design that stands apart. This is the embroidered “map shawl from Kashmir”, a truly fascinating textile, as it portrays a stylized cartographic view of places; extant antique map shawls portray cartographic views of Srinagar, the capital city of Kashmir.
The antique map shawls portray an aerial view of Srinagar rendered as a charming pictorial expression. There are topographical features, people, buildings, flora and fauna, and other elements laid flat on the ground, at times in different directions, creating the impression of a painting from a distance. In the map depicting Srinagar, there are people in boats in the Dal Lake and the Jhelum River; people walking and soldiers marching; people on foot and men on horses and an elephant. There are gardens and lush trees; meandering streets; mosques; homes with people inside; rocky outcrops; birds flying; wooden bridges across the Jhelum River; and more.
On close-quarters the design shows tiny stitches and reveals that the work is in fact a marvellous creation of a skilled designer and skilled embroiderers who have seamlessly integrated the arts of illustration, cartography embroidery to create a unique work of art. All these aspects in fact make the shawl akin a document of the local history and culture even as it takes the traditional art of the pashmina shawl of Kashmir to another level.
A Rare Beauty
Antique map shawls from Kashmir are very rare and little known about. “The earliest known map shawls from Kashmir date to the late 1880s. There are three or four such specimens in the world that we know about”, says Waseem Ahmed hailing from a family of traditional darners. The family is based in New Delhi, and Waseem divides his time between New Delhi, Kashmir and Najibabad (the traditional hub of darners).
Fascinated by the beauty and uniqueness of the map shawl, Waseem spent a year researching the subject and travelled to London (2015-2016) to see the map shawl first hand at the Victoria & Albert Museum. “The shawl depicts a stylized map of Srinagar. It belongs to the Royal Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It is said that the map shawl in the museum was presented to Queen Victoria in the late 19th century. It is surmised that it was embroidered as a gift - representative of the beauty, culture and crafts of Kashmir- rather than for wearing”, says Waseem.
He was completely mesmerized by its beauty, its details and concept. “The shawl was of a twill weave. It was densely patterned with motifs and embroidered with fine darn, satin and stem stitches creating the effect of a weave. The embroidery was done with pashmina yarn. I recognized Srinagar’s famous places – Nishat Garden, Dilshad Garden and Shalimar Garden; Dal Lake and Jhelum River; Hazrat Bal, Jama Masjid and Bulbul Shah Mosque located between Ali Kadal and Naw Kadal; Parade Ground and Shergarhi Palace; Shankaracharya Temple; Hari Parbat Fort; Shah Hamadan Mosque and the Patthar Masjid- embroidered on the map shawl way back in the second half of the 19th century. It is said the shawl took thirty years to embroider! I decided to design and create similar map shawls. It was my ambition to create pashminas that would stand out. And when I saw the map shawl I knew this is what I wished to work on”.
Recreating the Map Shawl
On return, Waseem discussed the map shawl with his father Atiq Ahmed, a fourth generation darner of pashmina shawls who had mastered the art of darning under the guidance of his grandfather. Father and son decided to create a map shawl in collaboration with artisans residing in Ganderbal District in Kashmir.
“My forefathers had been employed by the Mughal rulers to darn shawls and my father considers himself fortunate to carry this rich legacy forward. Our craft of darning and restoration of priceless pashmina shawls has given us knowledge of weaving and embroidery. Meanwhile, in recent years there has been a decline in work related to darning of historical and antique shawls. So we decided to take up designing beautiful, rare shawls and collaborating with artisans in Kashmir. And given the beauty of the map shawl I thought we should recreate the same and share its beauty with the world”, says Waseem.
Around the same time, Waseem had been in touch with textile enthusiast and patron Lavina Baldota, custodian of The Abheraj Baldota Foundation that promotes and preserves Gandhian philosophies and ways of life, Hosapete, Karnataka, India. When he shared his thoughts on the map shawl with her, she spontaneously encouraged him to go ahead with the textile and said she would purchase the work. This gave him the support to go ahead with the concept. Thus, work on it began.
Atiq –being familiar with Srinagar’s landmarks, having images of the map shawl at the V&A Museum, and provided information from his son Waseem- created an illustration for the map shawl based on the original in the museum. This illustration was then transferred on to a pashmina shawl that was hand-woven with hand-spun yarns.
The pashmina shawl was stretched out on a wooden frame placed on the floor, and embroiderers Qasim Ahmed, Azeem Ahmed, and Nadeem Ahmed in Ganderbal District, Kashmir, worked on it for six months embroidering the hundreds of motifs of the illustration to bring it alive. In addition, there are tiny inscriptions of words written in Persian that identify some of the places. The end-panels have fifteen niches with a man holding flowers (in one hand) in each niche. The shawl is 90” by 45”.
The embroidery was rendered in fine chain stitch using a needle with a very fine hook at its tip. It was done with silk threads; some were sourced from Ahmedabad and some were dyed with natural dyes in the workshop. Colours for the motifs were selected as the work progressed. As the work progressed, Waseem kept sending Lavina images of the shawl and colours being selected for the motifs. It was completed in 2018.
After creating the “Map of Srinagar” map shawl, Atiq designed “Gratitude To The Freedom Fighter”, a map shawl depicting India in the context of its freedom movement. It is a pashmina shawl with chain stitch embroidery and hand-painting. It was created by Atiq Ahmed with Qasim Ahmed, Imtiyaz Dar, Fayaz and Farooq Dar from Kashmir in 2022.
The “Gratitude To The Freedom Fighter” and “Map of Srinagar” shawls at Sutr Santati: Then. Now. Next
Lavina found the map shawls fascinating and an ideal textile to convey the textile heritage of Kashmir to the world. The two maps shawls are part of the textiles collection of Sutr Santati: Then. Now. Next. (that translates as ‘the continuity of thread’), an exhibition of specially commissioned Indian textiles so far held at New Delhi, Melbourne and Mumbai. The exhibition was conceived and curated by Lavina. The “Gratitude To The Freedom Fighter” map shawl was exhibited at New Delhi in August 2022 as the exhibition celebrated 75 years of India’s birth as an independent nation. The shawl was also part of the Sutr Santati exhibition held in Melbourne (May-September 2023).
The “Map of Srinagar” shawl is being exhibited at the Mumbai iteration of the exhibition presently showing at NGMA, Mumbai, till 7th January 2024. The shawl, has taken viewers by surprise as it recalled the beauty of the historic map shawl in its design and details, even though its design/embroidery is a lighter version of the original map shawl at the V & A.
The “Map of Srinagar” shawl is neatly hand-embroidered with an interesting innovation: the sections representing the Jhelum River and Dal Lake are hand-painted with blue paint and their waters accentuated by embroidered lines alluding to waves. In addition, a small 10” by 10” (in the kani weaving technique) map shawl was woven. This was displayed to the side of the large hand-embroidered shawl. It took a month to weave. This was the second innovation from Atiq, Waseem and the artisans, as the historical map shawls were embroidered and not woven. The large map shawl and the small woven sample received very appreciative reviews, for their beauty and as images of map shawls have been seen only in books by most and some viewers were not aware of map shawls.
In the past few years, Atiq, Waseem and the artisans have created embroidered map shawls for patrons on order. The shawls for women are 90” by 45”, and for men are 108” by 52”, and they typically take about six months to embroider. They are happy to have recreated the map shawls of Kashmir and played a role in reviving Kashmir’s pashmina heritage. They are fulfilled at creating these unique map shawls that link them with their heritage and culture, and showcase the timeless skills of Kashmir’s artisans to the world.
Lavina Baldota @lavinabaldota
Waseem Ahmed @antiqueshawls
Sutr Santati @santati_then-now-next
Text by Brinda Gill
Images Courtesy of Sutr Santati Team and Waseem Ahmed
2 comments
Very well executed
I find it strange there is no mention of the Srinigar map embroidery shawl in the Srinigar Museum. Five of us from australia made an appointment and saw it in Srinigar in October. It is flood damaged and its colours are muddied…..such a shame. We have an early Srinigar map shawl , known as the Godfrey shawl in the National Att gallery in Canberra. . It would be wonderful if the one in Srinigar could be restored. We dream of an international exhibition of the V and A shawl , the Srinigar museum one and the canberra shawl. All three are spectacular examples of fine embroidery from the 1800s