HAND-EMBROIDERED SILK CUSHIONS  :

These are the result of a meeting with an embroidery workshop set up in Delhi by a sophisticated Italian, who has been finding inspiration for years in old Indian embroidery, particularly from the Moghol period. She has succeeded in using the wonderful dexterity of her embroiderers, all of them men, guiding them to an aesthetic quality which is far removed from contemporary applications, which a lack of culture and a concern for profitability have so often made decadent. A painstaking, delicate task, on which I merely superimposed the colours that are always with me, but in a range of dark natural silks that appear slightly faded, like Spillaert pastels or the cushions by a Napoleon III widow in black turned brown by time. It was necessary to take care not to frighten away this lightness, in the same way as you hold your breath to avoid making a bird fly away in fright. (...)

Printed fabrics, Northern India (Rajastan), 18th century