CAMBRIDGE, MA.- Kashmir shawls and silver tableware produced in India during the Colonial period (18th and 19th centuries) will be on display at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum through January 29, 2006. Silver and Shawls: India, Europe, and the Colonial Art Market will feature some 30 pieces of silver and 11 shawls, most loaned by private collectors. The objects, which illustrate the influence of colonial patrons and the international market on the design and form of Indian decorative arts, were created at a time when foreign demand for Indian textiles and luxury goods was at its peak.

“This exhibition is a refreshing change for us with its focus on decorative arts—an area we would like to devote more interest to,” said Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. “Visitors will see why Kashmir shawls were the most sought-after textiles in 19th-century Europe, and how brilliant Indian silversmiths incorporated ‘exotic’ elements into the restrained Georgian-style designs favored by the British.”

“The exhibition hinges on two opposing stylistic developments,” said Kimberly Masteller, assistant curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art, who co-organized the show with guest curator Jeffrey B. Spurr. “The shawls become closer to European taste, whereas the silver takes on more exotic, Indian design elements.” Spurr is Islamic and Middle East Specialist in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard’s Fine Arts Library.

Colonial Silver - The silver tableware on display in Silver and Shawls chronicles the dynamic changes in form that took place in Indian metalwork during the Colonial period. As early as 1720, jewelers and goldsmiths from Britain were working in Madras, and shortly after in Bombay, Calcutta, and elsewhere in India. By the late 1700s, they expanded their production to silver tableware based on European forms but redesigned to accommodate local styles of cooking and serving. Specialized containers and utensils were developed to warm and serve curries and roasted meat, to filter milk and claret, and to cover drinking water.

In the 19th century, many expatriate gold- and silversmiths began to employ Indian craftsmen who had been trained in indigenous styles. During the mid- to late-1800s, these smiths began to embellish European-style objects with local designs. This hybrid style became popular after it was displayed in the Indian section of the Great Exhibition of London in 1851.

One famous workshop represented in the exhibition was that of Peter Orr & Sons, founded in Madras in 1851 by Peter Nicholas Orr, a watchmaker from London. One of the largest and most successful silver manufacturers in India, the Orr workshop produced tableware and gold, gilt, and silver “swami” jewelry populated with Indian deities and exotic scenes.

In the exhibition - Visitors will see several pieces made by Peter Orr & Sons, including an oval tray with serpent border created in 1904 for presentation to a captain in the Ooregum Gold Mining Company of India; a “swami-style” gold necklace and earrings bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum in 1895 by its founder, Mrs. William Hayes Fogg; and an engraved circular racing trophy from 1884 that is an exact copy of a gold dish given to the Prince of Wales on his visit to India in 1875 and 1876.

Hybrid silver was also produced in Indian-run workshops in other regional centers, particularly Lucknow, the capital of the Muslim kingdom of Awadh. Awadh was known for its traditional metalsmithing and enameling, and its manufacture of textiles with gold and silver brocade and embroidery. Lucknow is represented by two objects: a Renaissance Revival Ewer, made in 1860 and embellished with applied palmettes and round faces representing Surya, the Hindu sun god; and an unmarked silver presentation bowl decorated with fish, the emblem of the Awadh kingdom.

From Kutch, a major center for textiles, embroidery, leatherwork, and jewelry in western Gujarat state, comes extremely ornate silver that was favored by Europeans. Six objects in the show are from the famous workshop of Oomersi Mawji, who marked his silver with the initials OM and—true to his background as a cobbler—punched his designs into metal from the exterior. Visitors will see a striking claret jug, circa 1880, completely covered in punched-out foliage designs and embellished with a long silver cobra curled to form the pitcher’s handle; a two-handled cup from around 1880 decorated with figures from Greek mythology; and a creamer jug from around 1894.

Other silver pieces in the exhibition were made in Calcutta and Kashmir. Most of the objects on display are from the Collection of Richard Milhender; the remainder are from anonymous private collections.