AMBER: Textiles designer Brigitte Singh lovingly lays out a piece of cloth embossed with a red poppy plant she says was probably designed for emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, four centuries ago.

For Singh — who moved from France to India 42 years ago and married into a maharaja’s family — this exquisite piece remains the ever-inspiring heart of her studio’s mission.

The 67-year-old is striving to keep alive the art of block printing, which flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries under the conquering but sophisticated Mughal dynasty that then ruled India.

“I was the first to give a renaissance to this kind of Mughal design,” Singh said in her traditional printing workshop in Rajasthan.

Having studied decorative arts in Paris, Singh arrived aged 25 in 1980 in western India’s Jaipur, the “last bastion” of the technique of using carved blocks of wood to print patterns on material.

“I dreamed of practising (miniature art) in Isfahan. But the Ayatollahs had just arrived in Iran (in the Islamic revolution of 1979). Or Herat, but the Soviets had just arrived in Afghanistan,” she remembers. “So by default, I ended up in Jaipur,” she said.

A few months after arriving, Singh was introduced to a member of the local nobility who was related to the maharaja of Rajasthan. They married in 1982. At first, Singh still hoped to try her hand at miniature painting. But after scouring the city for traditional paper to work on, she came across workshops using block printing.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2022