Hazara Phulkari Shawl

This Hazara phulkari shawl was made in Pakistan in the 19th century out of cotton and silk. You can usually identify if a phulkari shawl has been made by a Hazara artist as opposed to a Punjabi or Swati artist, because Hazara artists tend to embroider their shawls less densely and use more naturalistic motifs. This phulkari has a field of snowflakes in green, blue and red.

Phulkari are embroidered shawls that are made out of cotton and silk in Punjab and the greater region of northwest India and parts of Pakistan. Embroiderers decorate plain-woven cotton fabric with abstract geometric, floral, or figurative patterns, using brilliantly colored floss silk.  The makers work from the back of the textiles and use a darning stitch so most of the silk shows on the front. These long silk stitches catch the light in a way that makes monochromatic designs appear multi-hued, which imbues the textiles with a certain fantastical quality.