TEXTILE L11, DROUOT, Wednesday Avril 2017
This was a sale of various and sundry textiles from around the globe with an emphasis on period French costumes, lampas, palampores and Kashmir shawls.
Lot 233, an Indian long shawl with a central roundel split sharply into to solid colors of blue and white, hammered down at 2000 euros or 2540 with commission. It’s a shawl I had once owned or it just might have been it ‘dochalla double. Whatever be the case from having owned it many years ago I can still recall the quality of its weave, which was not that good. On a scale of ten, perhaps it was an 8 at the most. Besides its nicely worked center there was nothing in its design that would make it stand out.
The long shawl that did reach a decent level was Lot 235. The hammer plus commission came to 3937 euros reflects its fine array of rich, early 19th century colors, wonderful snaking pattern recalling patterns developed by Antony Berrus and which became very popular during the latter years of the 1840s. This would not be classified as a Sikh period shawl, though. My guess is that it was woven in the succeeding decade.
Lots 232 and 237, 1270 & 1397 euros respectively were more of the ‘garden variety’.
Lot 231 was a rumal with a star black center, pleasant design, nice colors and from what I can tell from experience just by looking at it on the web, an excellent weave. It went for about $1100.
A nice white centered long shawl form the first half of the 19th century, one of those monochromatic garden varieties of what I call the ‘Moorcroft’ pattern of stout Paisleys that monotonously shoulder up across the
the pallus, hammered out at 3556 euros with comm. Its white matan with the needleworked kunj botehs and central matan escutcheons certainly enriched its allure to perspective buyers.

Bare in mind that I have not seen these pieces in person and am therefore unaware of the amount of deterioration they might have suffered: holes, tears, rips, rotting, fading, stains, etc.