One of the most curious aspects of this shawl is the lack of 'copies' this design apparently never stimulated. This is particularly unusual as often times a design, especially an inventive one like this, would have been reproduced by another weaver. As was frequently the case these copies rarely if ever were able to capture the original's quality, but nevertheless, copies do exist, especially of shawls made post-1775.

There is one but it was not made in Kashmir, rather in Europe probably France. The Jacquard loom technique, which was mentioned in the introduction, was used and there can be no doubt this copy was made in Europe and not in Kashmir. The reason for mentioning this is because it substantiates a rather far-reaching theory about this shawl.

But before opening that can of worms, some other pieces of the puzzle should be mentioned. The craze for Kashmir shawls has often been ascribed to Napoleon's Near Eastern military maneuvers, which ended in 1803 with the final defeat of his armies in Egypt:
"On August 23, 1799, Napoleon abandoned his army in Egypt, and slipped off with a small crew on a swift vessel to France. Upon arrival, he took advantage of political turmoil to stage a coup d'etat, ultimately crowning himself Emperor. His army in Egypt fared less well. While largely met by military success, their numbers steadily dwindled through lack of supplies and illness. By the time they surrendered to the British, one man out of every three had died.

The real winners of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign were the artists, historians and other savants who accompanied him, and carried back numerous treasures (including the Rosetta Stone, inscribed in both Greek and hieroglyphics, which would later enable linguists to decipher the hieroglyphs). Astounded by the depth of Egypt's previously unknown splendours, they opened the eyes of France and the West to the mysteries of that country. So enchanted were the French by their role in the 'conquest' of Egypt, as Napoleon succeeded in convincing them, that for a century French art and culture would continue to glorify it."(1)

Did this shawl return to France with Napoleon?

It is well-documented Napoleon's wife, the Empress Josephine, possessed a large collection of Kashmir shawls, rumored to number 200. Was this shawl part of that collection? In support of this lies the fact Plate Fifteen was purchased in Paris in the early 1970's, along with several other early and rare Kashmir shawls at an auction sale. This fact alone would surely be insufficient to support this contention. However, the fact there is no other Kashmir shawl with this pattern or one including any substantial elements of it and the existence of only one copy, a French Jacquard woven one, adds additional weight to this possibility.

One thing is sure this shawl is a very luxurious and rare weaving. As the Empress would surely have desired to wear and own articles others could not, having a unique shawl like this in her collection would definitely have been in her interest. But did a clever Jacquard artist catch her wearing it and sketch it either from life or from memory? Did that occasion then translate into one being made on a Jacquard loom for presentation to her or perhaps for another noblewoman? Or was that copy made for one of the commercial expositions where shawls were featured as important examples of commerce and technology?

No answers exist and, like many other questions raised by the historic weavings of the Near East, further discoveries made through historic research, ethnographic investigation, and new methods of scientific inquiry will perhaps one day provide them. Until then we can only marvel at the wealth of effort and expertise countless artists, designers, weavers, spinners and the harvesters of rare animal hairs devoted to the production of the masterpiece weaving known as Kashmir Shawl.