Floor Covering or Hanging (Pha Kiao)

Unknown artist

Luxury painted cotton textiles expressly commissioned for the Siamese royal court constitute a specialized category of the Indian chintz trade. They include designs that closely follow Thai aesthetics—densely rendered decorative detail typically arranged in trellis-like lattice patterns that repeat across a central field. Here figures of the Hindu deity Brahma emanate from cartouches set within a trellis pattern of heavenly nymphs (apsara) and sandal-flower rosettes. Its intricate decorative detail was achieved by a series of repeat resist-dyeing processes that built up the pattern’s polychrome complexity.cat. no. 40