Second half of 19th century

Kantha (Embroidered Quilt)

The imagery on this extraordinary quilt depicts aspects of daily life in nineteenth-century Bengal. In the left inner border, the upper portion of a female figure beneath an arch supported by classical pillars is clearly one of the large clay temporary icons created for Bengali festivals honoring the goddess in her various forms, here set within a domestic shrine. This icon is flanked by pot-bellied priests as well as worshipers, some sporting the upturned hairdo popular among Bengal's urban gentry during the second half of the nineteenth century. The celebration continues with the musicians in the bottom border, a group of whom play shenai (long horns), and perhaps also with the crowd of women in the right inner border.