Indian creativity in miniature

Book review of Court & Courtship: Indian Miniatures in the TAPI Collection

Two enviable strands run through Court & Courtship, both of which have to do with the extraordinary people behind the making of this book. Collectors Shilpa and Praful Shah of Garden Vareli fame, the moving force behind the Textiles & Art of the People of India (TAPI) project, have collected whimsically, especially in regard to paintings where their eye was guided by the kind of textiles and costumes the painters had depicted: “jamas, paijamas, angarkhas, turbans, odhnis, patkas, qanats, floorspreads, and sunshades, woven in jamdani, muslin, brocade, mashru or painted in kalamkari, hand-block printed or embroidered in styles of the