John Forbes Watson
(1827 - 1892)
Illustrations of the Textile Manufactures of India. Second Series
John Forbes Watson, Illustrations of the Textile Manufactures of India. Second Series, London: Indian Office for the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education, South Kensington Museum [later the Victoria & Albert Museum], 1881
Title page followed by 94 chromolithographed plates in gold and silver and a multitude of colors on thick card and signed in plate: W. Griggs, photo-litho, India Museum (numbered 2–28, 40–41, 48, 56–68, 70–71, 73–75, 77–80, 84, 86–94, 96–101, 101a, 103–104, 108, 110–120, 122–123, 125–126, 129–133, 386, 388), each mounted on guards and printed with caption titles in letterpress and plate numbers below each printed image indicating region, material, and local terminology. Lacking 47 plates (nos. 1, 29–39, 42–47, 49–55, 69, 72, 76, 81–83, 85, 95, 102, 105–107, 109, 121, 124, 127–128, 387); original publisher’s tan cloth portfolio, retaining yellow gilt-embossed title panel to upper cover, with red silk ribbon marker, top edges gilt.
The second series was known to be published non-sequentially, with substantial variation in content and number of plates across extant copies. Institutional holdings range from 85 to 105 plates, and no two sets are identical. This copy comprises 94 plates, lacking 47, but still offers an impressive spectrum of India's textile heritage as understood through colonial collecting.
WATSON’S ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TEXTILE MANUFACTURES OF INDIA. SECOND SERIES — A MONUMENTAL VISUAL RECORD OF INDIAN CRAFTSMANSHIP, PUBLISHED BY THE INDIAN OFFICE FOR THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM
This rare and historically significant portfolio forms part of the unfinished Second Series of Illustrations of the Textile Manufactures of India, a monumental undertaking directed by Sir John Forbes Watson, whose pioneering work in documenting Indian material culture transformed the way in which Indian handicrafts were studied, taught, and industrially replicated during the late nineteenth century. Issued under the authority of the India Office and the South Kensington Museum, this folio—comprising plates with a wide and varied selection of chromolithographed plates—captures the breadth of India’s textile traditions as documented under colonial ethnographic and industrial surveys. These plates depict a remarkable range of textile types, including woven cottons and silks, dyed and printed fabrics, resist-dye techniques (such as bandhani and ikat), brocades, and embroidered cloths, representing regional production centres from Punjab and Sindh in the northwest to Bengal, Gujarat, the Deccan, and southern India. Plates 386 and 388, which begin a thematic section on embroideries, showcase examples from western and central India, including mirror work and satin stitch. Each plate is captioned with details including regional origin, local name, dimensions, material, and intended use, and is printed in high-quality colour photolithography.
The plates were printed under the technical supervision of William Griggs (1832–1911), the India Office’s preeminent lithographer, who was instrumental in developing advanced photo-chromo-lithographic techniques. Griggs’s process—often involving six to eight impressions per plate—allowed for faithful replication of complex weave patterns, colour gradations, and surface textures. Some plates incorporate metallic inks, tinted backgrounds, or hand-applied colour to mimic the original textile’s depth and sheen. This technical innovation enabled the translation of material into visual form with exceptional clarity and fidelity, compensating for the absence of actual mounted cloth specimens as seen in earlier publications. The chromolithographs thus represent not only fine examples of nineteenth-century printing but also a critical moment in the abstraction of craft for pedagogical and industrial application.
The present volume was conceived as a visual supplement to Watson’s earlier and more elaborate Collection of Specimens of the Textile Manufactures of India (1866–1872), a first-of-its-kind ethnographic and industrial catalogue composed of eighteen folio volumes containing over 700 mounted textile samples. These specimens—sourced from exhibitions such as the 1851 Great Exhibition and the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris and drawn from regions now forming India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—offered firsthand engagement with the textures, dyes, and weaving techniques of Indian artisans. The first edition was produced in limited quantities, with only around 20 to 25 full sets believed to have been issued, distributed among institutional libraries, colonial administrative centres, and textile manufacturing hubs in Britain and India.
In contrast, the Second Series marked a departure from materiality towards visual representation. Abandoning actual fabric samples, the 1880 edition substituted printed illustrations on card, reducing production costs and enabling broader distribution to art schools and technical colleges. This shift reflected both logistical pragmatism and a deeper pedagogical transition—from tactile engagement to visual taxonomy. The images served as templates for industrial design, abstracted from their cultural contexts and reconstituted as repeatable patterns for mass production. The British state’s growing interest in systematising design education, especially through the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, positioned these volumes as tools of aesthetic instruction and commercial stimulus. The didactic aim was to equip British manufacturers with the stylistic vocabulary of Indian textiles so that they might better cater to colonial markets.
Although the Second Series was never completed and extant copies vary in composition, volumes such as this one—covering plates 386 to 400—offer an invaluable glimpse into two important categories of Indian craft. Embroidery, often dismissed in Victorian industrial design as ornamental, is here treated with documentary rigour, with attention to regional idioms, stitch types, and symbolic ornament. Similarly, the inclusion of mats—objects situated at the intersection of the domestic and the artisanal—signals an expanded ethnographic interest in vernacular design and utility. Both categories reflect the layered histories of hand production in India, at a time when mechanised imports from Britain were already undermining local industries.
A comparative analysis between the first and second series underscores this transition. The First Series presented real textile specimens—on average 34 × 19 cm in the earliest volumes and 19 × 19 cm in later ones—mounted with printed descriptive slips noting weight, price, thread count, and origin. Intended as “Industrial Museums” or “Trade Museums,” these sets served a small, elite audience of museum officials, educators, and manufacturers. In contrast, the 1880 edition replaced the material with visually rich lithographs, enabling the production of multiple copies for dissemination to provincial art schools, textile institutes, and colonial training centres. While the earlier edition privileged the tactile and the authentic, the latter emphasised pattern, reproducibility, and industrial utility. The lithographs thus became instruments of what might be termed colonial design pedagogy—abstracting Indian artisanship for integration into British manufacturing cycles.
The broader historical context of this project is inseparable from Britain’s colonial economic strategy. Watson’s work was both appreciative and appropriative: he admired the technical finesse of Indian weavers and embroiderers but also encouraged their emulation in British mills. He noted that certain textiles—particularly fine muslins—remained beyond the reach of British mechanisation, yet others, especially printed cottons and brocades, could be cheaply replicated for the Indian market using British looms. The long-term result was a surge in British-produced imitation cloth, which flooded Indian bazaars, eroding the market for indigenous weavers and altering craft economies irreversibly.
Despite these consequences, the enduring value of Watson’s work lies in its documentary completeness. His volumes remain a rare visual and textual archive of South Asian textile traditions in the decades before industrial displacement. The current volume—illustrating with such precision—thus functions both as a tool of nineteenth-century colonial enterprise and as an irreplaceable ethnographic record.
In summary, the 1880 Illustrations of the Textile Manufactures of India. Second Series represents the culmination of Watson’s vision—melding scholarly classification, imperial ideology, and visual pedagogy. It is both an exquisite artifact of nineteenth-century printing and an essential document in the global history of textile design, production, and colonial knowledge systems.
NON-EXPORTABLE