Delicate, indulgent and a visual treat – delve into the lost story of historic India’s heroic summer textile, as we explore the intricate nuances of the age-old craft that has endearingly made its way into today’s global fashionscape.
An artwork dating back to the late seventeenth century – titled Lovers in a Landscape by Mughal court painter Mir Kalan Khan – depicts a Persian couple in densely printed and dyed clothing seated across a woman who plays the Sitar, clad in a vivid yellow garment featuring the Indian lotus print. Myriad paintings from Mughal India portray Kings, Queens, and royal court members bedecked in diaphanous textiles swaying with the wind in vivid hues adorned with intricate embroideries. Similarly, a seventeenth-century ‘jama’ (from the Deccan region) displayed at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art features a striking red floral print with a contrasting green border.
Upon laying eyes on its vibrant shades – still glistening centuries after its creation – one might ponder over the exploration of such immaculate printing and the textile that continues to hold its colours so vividly to date. The answer to this lies in the age-old practice of hand-block printing – a technique that India had mastered like none other, and was practised on none other than our ‘plain old cotton’. Soft, dreamy and delicate, cotton textiles have been India’s most prized possession for centuries – the legacy of which continues to echo through the modern times.
‘Lovers in a Landscape’ – miniature by Mir Kalan Khan, circa 1760-70, The David Collection. 
Man’s Robe (Jama), circa 17th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Once considered ‘the royal plant’, Indian cotton pods produced fabrics as gentle as clouds – apt for the country’s humid climate. While the European continent was swooning over linens and wool, the royalty of erstwhile Hindustan patronaged exquisite ‘kapaas’ textiles that mimicked dew drops and were so finely woven, they could pass through a ring. A spectacular testament to Indian craftsmanship, yards of delicate cotton muslins produced as a community activity by generations of weavers and farmers, then used as the base for summer garments.
However, nothing stirred the outer world, much like the printed cottons, soaked and dipped in unordinary hues. Ancient India was the birthplace of intense dyes procured from natural sources like flora and fauna, rust and mud. These pigments were used to print intricate patterns on cotton cloths that absorbed and held colours easily – making them an object of desire for artists, royalty and poets alike. As you turn the pages ahead, discover the journey behind ancient India’s revered block printed cotton through our lens, capturing the textile today.
Earrings From Papa Don’t Preach 
Yards of freshly woven and washed cotton drying in Rajasthan.
Where it all began…
Princely India possessed a rich textile market even before block-printing rose to popularity, hand-painted fabrics being one of the most prominent examples. Earlier, block printing was practised locally in regions of Gujarat where the printing communities of Chhipas mastered this intricate and technological process. Their immaculate knowledge about minerals and plants used to extract vivid dyes is what made these prints so exquisite—something that the outside world could not decipher at the time. While life was flowing with ease and experts of the craft were spending their blissful time making natural dyes, disaster struck – but with a silver lining! Although the glorious art of ‘block printing’ already existed for years, it was only after the sixteenth-century Mughal-Maratha war, when the community of Chhipas moved to Rajasthan, the craft reached new heights.
Regions of Rajasthan already had thriving block printing businesses, Sanganer being an integral one. The region’s fabrics quickly caught the limelight due to their extraordinary lustre offered by the impeccable water supply from the Saraswati river that intensified the fabric dyes further. When the Chhipas moved to Rajasthan and honed their skills, they were noticed by Rajasthan’s nobility, who took this chance to merge the artisans to patronise the craft. The Chhipas then started closely working with the rangrez and dhobia inhabitants and exchanged skills. This time marked a stepping stone for the craft in Rajasthan’s history. As the population of expert artisans grew, the region’s commercial market boomed with quality production of hand-block textiles, now in larger quantities.
During this time, the printing community worked for three types of patrons – nobility and courtiers, temple devotees and general people. However, it was the royal linkage that helped the art form flourish. Taking up this remarkable opportunity to own the craft, the royalty of Rajasthan commissioned printers to create a variety of motifs, significant to respective gharanas. From odhni to pagri, curtains to palace decor, block-printed textiles in artful patterns were seen everywhere. These myriad designs and patterns were further segregated according to the regions they were made in, namely – Bagru & Sanganeri prints.
Situated about thirty two kilometres away from the capital city of Jaipur, the village of Bagru has been a primary production centre for block printed textiles. The speciality of the prints made in this region lie in their dark bases and use of deeply saturated dyes like indigo, black, brown and saunder reds. In case of Bagru printed fabrics which have dark bases, the raw yardages are first dyed in the desired hue and washed before the printing process begins. The patterns here vary from repeated floral clusters to geometric motifs, including stripes and triangles.
Some commonly seen floral motifs include the Indian marigold or gainda, badam, kamal and bel. These motifs appear in varying sizes and colour combinations throughout the cloth on which they are printed. Bagru prints strictly employ natural dyes only, most frequently black, derived from a mixture of iron filings and jaggery and gum. The blood red spotted in Bagru prints is procured from a mixture of madder and alum whereas, shades of grey, khaki and brown are derived from kashish (potassium permanganate), produced from iron deposits. Other prominent hues in the Bagru palette include green and yellow. An important element of Bagru’s printing process is its clay-rich soil, which brings out its dyes’ intense shades.
Sophisticated and svelte, prints that originated in the Sanganer district of Rajasthan were subject to the majority of the royal patronage, evident in its textiles. The most stark characteristic of the fabrics printed in this region is their white background that gives them an elegant look, suited to the noble taste. This is complemented by the use of softer colours like haldi and gulaabi, extracted from the rose and turmeric plants. Although today not all Sanganeri prints are made on a colourless canvas, the use of white is still broadly eminent.
Apart from the colour scheme, the finesse in the delicate details are another aspect that distinguish Sanganeri prints. The famed floral bootas of Sanganer are further characterised by their curvatures towards the right side (although these patterns did not originate in this geography), and are paired with a distinct border running along the length of the fabric, locally known as the ‘bel’. Some of the flowers used in traditional Sanganeri prints include the champa, kamal (lotus), suryamukhi (sunflower), jatadhari lily, gulmehndi (rosemary), etc. The oldest and most popular form of Sanganeri block prints, are created by printing the outline or Rekh first and then, filled in with the Dutta blocks.
Into The Golden Age
The craft further peaked with the arrival of the Mughals, who revolutionised it completely by bringing in Persian and Central Asian influences. The golden era of block printing began from the reign of Babur to that of Aurangzeb, when karkhaanas (special printing units) were set up to proliferate the craft according to Mughal taste. The Sultanate disapproved of ethnic abstract designs and introduced flora and fauna motifs into Indian textile design. The Mughals’ fondness for the illusions of ‘eternal gardens’ inspired new and stylised motifs, but it was Emperor Jahangir’s exceptional fascination for nature that etched florals as an integral part of India’s design history. This was then carried forward by Shah Jahan, who commissioned an exquisite floral pietra dura (or Parchin Kari) on the Taj Mahal – the design of which continues to inspire block printers to date.
Footwear: London Rag
Mughal Motifs
If you recall spotting colourful marigold flowers on today’s block printed fabrics, know that they were introduced in the seventeenth century by Kings! Many textiles from the era, now preserved in places like The Calico Museum of Textiles, feature naturalistic flower bootas of various sizes – printed at an equal distance from each other – with the stem and leaves attached on both sides. However, as the print’s fame continued, the designs transformed to more stylised versions. This included the jaal print – in which the flower vines are interlaced throughout the fabric (or a portion), leaving no space in between. The Mughal era, lauded for its grandiose and influence on art and crafts, redefined the craft in a way that made the world stop and take notice. From flared angrakhas, shararas, robes, yalek and peshwaz to carpets and curtains – the courts were draped in block prints at every corner of every turn.
Floral carvings on the Taj Mahal, Agra, India.
The Art of Block
One of the world’s oldest art forms, block printing, is a labour-intensive process that includes various steps, each pivotal to the other. Traditionally, printing was done on unbleached mulmul or calicos, a heavy plain-weave variation of cotton. These indigenous textiles’ excellent absorption properties made them ideal for soaking up both light and dark dyes. Though the invention of machinery has made life easy, block printing still relies on the age-old practices of employing human hands.
The entire process begins with washing colossal yards of fabrics in tubs made out of mud, and then hanging them under natural sunlight to dry out completely. This step generally does not take more than a day, except during monsoons when the fabrics take more time to get rid of all the dampness. Once dried, the printer then proceeds to mark the section on the cloth where the first block is to be stamped.
The foundation of block printing is the ‘wooden block’ primarily made of lime, holly, sycamore or pear wood. Though they may vary in size, the blocks are always cut two to three inches thick. What follows is preparing these blocks for carving the desired designs by dampening them. After the blocks are ready, the printing process commences by preparing the dyes to achieve the preferred hues.
A glimpse into the process of block carving and final printing.
The immaculate art of block carving is perfected by generations of carvers who have passed down the skill to their descendants. The process begins with a freehand paper drawing of the desired designs. Using it as a map, the artisan then traces out the wooden block’s surface, which is often covered with white paint for the markings to stand out. Soon after, the carving process begins, using tools like a hand drill to carve the rough parts of the wood and a wood planer to soften its surface. Getting a smooth finish on the wooden surface is essential to perfect any design. The patterns chiselled on the blocks are what make or break the final product, making it the most time-consuming and labour-intensive step. After the carving is complete, extra precaution is taken to avoid cracking of wood by soaking the blocks in oil for up to fifteen days. Many of these blocks have been used for years by the printers, a testament to their sustainability and high quality of craftsmanship.
Different blocks are used depending on the design and the number of colours required. While crafting pieces for Kings and Queens, these wooden blocks were often replaced with brass ones to master the precision and clarity of intricate lines. Naturally, these metal or brass blocks were comparatively more expensive, making them a favourite amongst the nobility and higher classes of society. It is rather extraordinary how uniformity in printing is achieved with these blocks over hundreds of metres of fabric. The printers know where to place the next block by the corner ‘pitch pins’, which allow for the successful positioning of the blocks, rendering a consistent look throughout. However, the small imperfections in the prints make these textiles authentic and testify to their handmade nature.
The Craft Today
The journey of block prints has been a rather precarious one. Although it faced considerable blow during the British Raj in India, the craft eventually rose back to its much-deserved popularity. Sanganer in Rajasthan has been the epicentre of the craft throughout history, where majority production of block prints happen even today. Thanks to legendary textile designers like Brigitte Singh who has done exceptional work with historical craft in order to revive modern renditions, giving families of local printers respectable employment.
Started by John and Faith Singh in 1970, ANOKHI is another such homegrown brand that has helped artisans develop their craft and transformed their skills into modern fashion pieces. The Anokhi Museum situated in a preserved and remodelled Jaipur haveli, showcases age-old hand block prints that influence designers on a global level. The Anokhi archives also include vintage tools used in the craft like wooden and iron blocks, chisels, drills, etc. The most recent mention in this regard goes to The Palace Atelier – a concept and museum store in Jaipur, Rajasthan that showcases the city’s timeless crafts – found by Princess Gauravi Kumari.
In the Indian luxury market, designers like Punit Balana, Anita Dongre and Samant Chauhan work extensively with block prints, giving them their own distinctive style to create new-age versions of the art form. But more than in the couture section, one can find block prints in the prêt fashionscape of modern India. Think airy maxi dresses, blazers, corsets, skirts and trousers from labels like JODI, Khara Kapas, Gulabo Jaipur and more.
Ring : Amama;
Bag: Amama
Block printed cottons have been a time-tested fabric that caters equally to style and comfort, and the ready-to-wear clothing market is rightfully engulfed by them. Other popular prêt labels like Good Earth and Fabindia have been a crowd favourite for their diverse offerings, ranging from hand-block printed furnishings, apparel, home decor and accessories.