This book tells the full story of the Kashmir shawl, how it migrated to Europe in the 1800s and how the key pattern of the boteh evolved. With its beginnings under the Mughal emperors in Kashmir, the industry continued under Afghan rule, with an explosion of new designs during the Sikh period, until it fell into decline under the rule of the Dogra Rajahs. The author, a textile dealer, stresses the importance of the French connection in the nineteenth...