An earlier dated marble relief panel circa 1660(fig.23) from the Amber Palace in Jaipur, India could very well have provided the model for those leaves. This panel and a number of others line the walls of the Diwan-I- Am, the hall of public audiences built by Man Singh I. Man Singh was the princely ruler of Jaipur and he had at one time been the commander of Akbar's army.

Jaipur is located about 150 miles to the south of Delhi and the Rajput princes of Jaipur always maintained an interesting history of connection to the Mughal center at Delhi. This city, or even the Amber Palace itself, might have housed royal ateliers where shawl designs and even shawls destined for the Emperor and his court at Delhi as well as the one centered in Jaipur were produced. Unfortunately no documentation exists to confirm this possibility but these various clues make it appear to be likely. The decorative art of the Amber Palace will be mentioned again below but let's now turn our attention back to this shawl.

Here we see an assembly of the flowers containing ones from the previous Plates along with the inclusion of some new ones. Some years ago several of the curators from the Royal Botanical Gardens, located just outside London were asked to identify them. Figure 24 has been annotated with the identifications they suggested. It should be noted these experts all agreed the identifications were not positive because certain small aspects of most of the flowers, like the leaf outlines or actual petals of the flowers, were not 100 percent true to nature. But they all agreed on these identifications and the strong resemblances they have with nature.

Not only does the composite flower drawing style place Plate Six in the LCP but the presence of the standard crocus, leaf and scrolling vine border guarantees this placement. When compared to the previous example the slight but noticeable compression of the border elements and further stylization to render the leaf almost unrecognizable demonstrate why it appears in the continuum after Plate Five, which is undoubtedly the earlier weaving.

The revival of older shawl patterns has been mentioned and figure 25 demonstrates an example. These revivals were never made in any quantity and appear in very limited numbers in the corpus of remaining shawls. Most can be dated to the beginning of the 19th century although there are some from the very end of the 18th century as well. The designers and weavers of the revivals rarely were interested or in many cases able to copy anything other than one or two of the most sensational features of the original - notice only the undulating leaves were copied in figure 25 without any of the other features. They would then substitute their own contemporary designs and style for the rest of the details and this also holds true here.

The rather stiff and two-dimensional reproduction figure 25 makes of Plate Six's unique undulating leaves is typical. Remember shawls like figure 25 were woven as copies of much older examples and can be confused with the originals. However their border elements and designs date them to their actual period of production. Based on them an early 19th century date appears likely for figure 25. Should there be any doubt it is a revival shawl please note the undulating leaves they share are unknown from any other examples and this factor alone underlines this connection.

A painted wall-mural(fig.26) from the Amber Palace complex in Jaipur illustrates another plant with similar leaves. It can be dated circa 1750, almost one hundred years later than the marble carving(fig.23) it models but still earlier than figure 25. A number of other painted murals, some with designs and stylistic similarities to Kashmir shawls grace the walls and niches in large forecourt known as the Ganesh Pol, where this painting was situated.

The revivalist movement has not been mentioned in any other work dealing with Kashmir Shawls and there are no references besides a few other examples like this one. Did these later designers use the actual weavings themselves as models or did they work from old talim (the talim is the term for the weaving diagram each shawl required)? This issue, revival of older designs, is another fruitful area for research, which may help to uncover important details to answer the many still unresolved questions early shawls like this one raise.

It may also shed some light on Jaipur's involvement with Kashmir shawl designing and manufacture.