Typical Chinese embroidery was mostly done on small objects — purses, containers for bottles, ends for bolsters, even shoes for bound feet, said editor, journalist and collector of Chinese and Indian textiles, Don Cohn. He was speaking on "Sources for Parsi Embroidery: China, Chinoiserie and the Melting Pot of Culture" at the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan on December 18, 2018 at a lecture organized by the Bhavan with The Museum Society of Mumbai (MSM) and the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya). Calling gara embroidery a craft of the near sighted on account of the detailed work involved, the collector commented that he too, like traditional embroiderers, loved looking at "small things" like miniature paintings, with a magnifying glass. The speaker was introduced by his associate Arthur Deft.
Cohn said his talk was "taking off" from the publication Peonies and Pagodas: Embroidered Parsi Textiles/Tapi Collection edited by Shilpa Shah and Tulsi Vatsal. What is missing is "an overarching picture" about the origin and popularity of the gara, he commented. "Can we explain the popularity of the gara only by trade...or was it a quest for something that was considered fashionable?" Cohn inquired of the audience. "The garas were becoming popular in India when China was falling apart with the Opium Wars and the Taipei Rebellion, he said. Many patterns were copied from blue and white Chinese pottery. The collector called Persian embroidery that appears on certain jhablas "not less interesting," than Chinese, but "symmetrical and mechanical." The making of the Persian patterns did not require imagination as it was repetitive, he said.
Clockwise from top: Don Cohn, Arthur Deft, Dr Pheroza Godrej,
Dr Anita Rane-Kothare, Vanita Bhandari, sample of Chinese embroidery
Could it be possible that Parsi traders brought pattern books from China, showed them to the women folk in India and went back to China with the chosen designs and colors for the execution of the work? queried art historian and president of MSM Dr Pheroza Godrej. According to MSM vice president Dr Anita Rane-Kothare, dressed in a maroon gara for the occasion, the Persian influence on Parsi fabrics was the possible outcome of craftsmen migrating from Armenia to Persia, Kashmir, China and India.
The lecture was supported by Vanita Bhandari in memory of her mother, the late Perveez Aggarwal, life member of MSM, who successfully ran a business of embroidered saris, kurtas and jackets, under the label of "My Beautiful Embroideries" (see "A creditable couple," In Memoriam, Parsiana, December 21, 2018).