DRESS CODE

- A podcast with Professor Giorgio Riello from the Global History and Culture Centre

What can ordinary objects – and the trade of those objects across the globe – tell us about the past? Here, Prof Giorgio Riello, who uses textiles, dress and fashion as a starting point for understanding the history of economic and social changes around the world, examines an intriguing 18th century painting of English children in Asian clothing for clues.

Professor Giorgio Riello has written widely on fashion and textiles, covering everything from the history of shoes to the influence of Asian fibres on the global cotton industry. He was in charge of the Global Economic History Network ‘Cotton Project’ at the London School of Economics between 2004 and 2007, and, along with fellow Warwick academic Dr Anne Gerritsen, he is a member of the Global Commodities Network: an AHRC-funded initiative that brings together scholars with an interest in material culture of the period c. 1400-1800. A collaboration between the University of Warwick, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and Bilgi University in Istanbul, the project has already resulted in three interdisciplinary events, with future events planned at the V&A and the University of Warwick. Research for this podcast has been supported by the Philip Leverhulme Prize.

Here, Professor Riello takes a look at a curious painting, Two Children in Asian Clothing, by the English artist Tilly Kettle (1735–1786) which has been recently acquired by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Not a great deal is known about Kettle’s early life, but we do know that, like many artists of the period, he was influenced by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Although skilled, Kettle did not achieve a great deal of success in England (something that Prof Riello attributes to a lack of patronage) and this might have been why he decided to migrate. “Kettle was a pioneer when he reached Madras in 1769, as he was the first, professional British painter to go to India,” says Prof Riello. “He was one of the lucky ones who survived a six-month journey and the so-called ‘horrid’ Indian fevers that decimated Europeans arriving in India in the 18th century.”

What about the clothes worn by the children in the picture? “The Indian dress worn by the younger child looks like a cotton jama with gold thread embroidery. It’s very similar to surviving examples,” says Prof Riello, “The patka – the sash – also seems to be made of cotton, probably with silk and gold embroidery. Existing examples point to the fact that this was an elite dress – the dress is accompanied by gold bangles and the turban includes a jewel made to look like a turban aigrette, complete with the usual feather, though in this case, the feather is not quite the right type.” Susan Stronge, a Senior Curator in the Asian Department of the V&A, pointed out that what was missing was the string of pearls commonly worn by Indian noblemen, but this probably indicates that Kettle was taking inspiration from the courtly dress of South India, Prof Riello believes, rather than the North, where he was based.

But why is the older child in Chinese dress? “Here, of course, we can only speculate. We do not know who the boys are; one might wish to think that they were the sons – or even the son and the daughter – of an English East India man who perhaps served in both India and China. This is a suggested hypothesis, but it’s also very unlikely. More probable is that the painting was an act of mixing real and fictional – a kind of dressing up, most likely done, not in India, but in England.”

For more insights into Two Children in Asian Costume, listen to the audio podcast of the whole interview above.

Giorgio Riello, Associate Professor in Global History and Culture (Department of History) has written extensively on early modern textiles, dress and fashion, and material culture in Europe and Asia. He is the author of A Foot in the Past: Consumers, Producers and Footwear in the Long Eighteenth Century (2006) and has co-edited four volumes including (with Peter McNeil), Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers (2006). He is the Newcomen Article Prize Winner 2009 for the article 'Strategies and Boundaries' and is Director of the Pasold Research Fund.

The image of Two Children in Asian Costume is published here with kind permission of the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts, where the work will be exhibited in 2013.

By Dr Annette Rubery