Style Guide: Influence of India
India had special significance in 19th-century Britain. It was the key possession of the British Empire and many goods were made there for the British market.
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Consuming South Asian textiles
Indian textiles were valued for a variety of reasons in 19th-century Britain. They were prized as symbolic trophies of Britain's empire in India and examples of its materia…
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Indian textiles & Empire: John Forbes Watson
John Forbes Watson's (1827-1892) idea for 'portable industrial museums', led to the publication of The Collections of the Textile Manufactures of India in 1866, eighteen vo…
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Indian textiles & Empire: Caspar Purdon Clarke
Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke (1846-1911) was an architect, archaeologist and museum director. In 1882 he was sent to India with a budget of £5000 to buy objects for the museum'…
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Indian textiles & Empire: Owen Jones
The 1852 Great Exhibition, held in London's Hyde Park, was the first of a series of international exhibitions to be held in major world cities. It provided the British publ…
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Style Guide: Chinese and Indian Style
Designs influenced by Chinese and Indian art and architecture were extremely popular in the early 19th century. The renewed interest in the East was stimulated by objects i…
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Luxury Goods from India: The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker
Luxury Goods from India highlights key objects from the V&A's unrivalled collection of furniture and objets d'art from India and Sri Lanka. Many o…
Buy nowEvent - Indian Arrival Day
Fri 24 May 2013 18:30
SPECIAL EVENT: Explore the aftermath of the transatlantic slave trade, the growth of material prosperity as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and mass migration of an indentured labour force from the Indian subcontinent to east and south Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
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