early kantha are marshaled to create a symmetrically balanced field (compare figures I.17 and I.18 with I.19). The majority of extant examples from both groups of textiles organize the square or rectangular surface with a prominent central motif, which is framed within panels and borders extending to the edges of the fabric. The corners are often also marked with distinctive motifs, sometimes set within roundels or variant forms. Colchas display figural motifs such as the Judgment of Solomon (fig. I.22), the pelican feeding its young, the double-headed eagle, architectural forms such as the triumphal arch, family coats of armor, and personifications of the senses.94 The motifs embroidered at each corner can feature a specific iconographic relationship to the central motif, as for example on the indigo silk colcha displaying personifications of the five senses, where one is given pride of place at the center while the four other senses mark the quadrants (fig. I.18).95 Rectangular kantha employing the lotus blossom at the center, with paisleys and flowering shrubs to anchor the corners, can suggest a similar symmetry and organization (fig. I.19).96
In its aesthetic sensibility, the embroidery on the same indigo silk colcha also shares qualities with kantha imagery. A comparison with the rendition of animals embedded within the exuberant floral field of a kantha such as that of Hemchandra Dutt reveals a common preference for dynamism and vigor through line and color choices, including the use of contrasting color outlines for forms (compare figures I.18, I.20, and I.21). The resulting elegant curves of the birds’ wings, the bold blooming floral forms, and the vitality of animals arrested in motion amid the vines create undulating rhythms of stasis and movement that invite viewers to luxuriate in their richness. Likewise, the bodies of animals and birds, often exuberantly filled with stripes, zigzags, dots, and circles on the colchas indicate that the predilection for colorful patterns was well in place before the earliest surviving kantha were created.
I.17. Colcha embroidered with yellow silk thread. ca. 1600. Attributed to Bengal. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Inv. 2237 Tec. Photograph Courtesy of Direção-Geral do Património Cultural / Arquivo de Documentação Fotográfica. Photographer: José Pessoa.
Figural arrangements embroidered on kantha and colcha also reveal compositional similarities despite the aesthetic difference arising from color, material, and thickness or ply of thread, stitch type, texture, and other choices. The figure of an elegantly attired man seated in a straight-backed chair, variously enjoying dance or musical performances and imbibing from hookahs or wine cups—ubiquitous in nineteenth-century kantha embroidery—for example, shares the basic compositional elements of the seated figure of the biblical king Solomon, who is usually presented at the center of larger colchas dispensing his wisdom and just rule (compare figures I.22 and I.23).97 On these textiles created for European consumers, Solomon presides over the case, the baby offered to him by a soldier to determine which of the two women below was the mother. A similarly seated figure on Manadasundari’s kantha enjoys the company of dancers in colonial Bengal. Both seated figures engage with an attendant, extending an arm to receive an offered article. A second attendant stands behind the chair back, presumably also waiting on the seated figure. Kantha and colcha renditions often display an animal tucked in the space between the legs of the chair presented in profile. They also share a fondness for lavishly detailing furniture stitch by stitch. Other kantha versions display canopies overhead, not unlike the textile hanging above the seated Solomon (fig. I.24). Such shared elements suggest the possibility that older motifs were adapted for newer narrative purposes as these emerged to prominence. The interpretive choices to render the details including color and stitches differ significantly, thereby contributing to the coherence of distinct aesthetic sensibilities of kantha and colchas.
I.18. Indigo silk colcha featuring personifications of the five senses. Attributed to ca. 1680. Bengal. 284.5 × 218.4 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988-7-4.
I.19. Rectangular kantha with religious imagery and satirical vignettes about contemporary life. Attributed to late nineteenth century. Bengal. 165.1 × 102.2 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Stella Kramrisch, 1968-184-10.
I.20. Dappled deer and birds. Detail of colcha featuring personifications of the five senses (figure I.17). Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988-7-4.
I.21. Birds and animals framed in swirling vegetation. Detail of Hemchandra Dutt’s kantha. Attributed to second half of the nineteenth century. Bengal. Weaver Studio Collection (2011-09.0046).
I.22. Solomon with the Scales of Justice. Detail of colcha (figure I.17). ca. 1600. Attributed to Bengal. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Inv. 2237 Tec. Photograph Courtesy of Direção-Geral do Património Cultural / Arquivo de Documentação Fotográfica. Photographer: José Pessoa.
Such comparisons invite questions about the transmission processes whereby forms and motifs may have been handed down over the two hundred years that probably separated the making of these two textiles. Motifs such as King Solomon dispensing justice were probably introduced to Bengali embroiderers through printed or other portable versions, particularly if the textiles were commissioned through a complex network of traders connecting Lisbon and other Iberian port towns to production centers in Hooghly and Satgaon in Bengal. These innovative compositions likely gained extensive circulation through embroideries and line drawings on cloth, and the enduring processes of bodily memory acquired in acts of repeated drawing and stitching and intergenerational transmissions from one set of hands and eyes to another. In such transmission processes inhere potential for playful variation. Not all versions of these seated males, for example, were visualized by designers familiar with rendering chairs in profile or figures seated in them.98 While Manadasundari’s babu fills his seat comfortably, others sit rather ill at ease.99 Some seem to lower themselves tentatively into the seat of straight-backed chairs, at some variance from the ambiance of leisure associated with a hookah in the hand (fig. I.24).100
I.23. Seated babu with attendant, entertained by female dancers. Detail of Manadasundari’s kantha (figure
