Excerpt from “Labels of Empire: Textile Trademarks, Windows into India in the Time of the Raj” by Susan Meller
In July 2013, after more than forty years of collecting textiles, I came across something that I had never seen before: a small paper label pasted inside a sample booklet that once belonged to a Calcutta fabric merchant. The brightly colored picture of a man and woman riding a white bull captivated me. What was…