The Visual Language of Textile Tickets in 20th-Century British India: A Collection from B. Taylor and Co.
Ragini Siruguri
University of Reading, UK (r.siruguri[at]outlook.com)
Abstract: This essay examines the visual language of textile tickets — small, printed labels used on cotton bales and fabric lengths — produced by British printers for export to colonial India between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Emerging amidst expanding colonial trade and advances in printing technology, these ephemera evolved into vivid, ideologically charged artifacts. Focusing on a collection of textile tickets produced by Manchester-based printing firm B. Taylor and Co., this study explores three recurring visual themes: empire, religion, and gender. It argues that these images did more than advertise textiles: they glorified British imperial authority, appropriated Indian religious imagery, and idealized women as passive ornamental objects to enhance appeal in a male-dominated trade. Through visual and contextual analysis, this essay demonstrates that textile tickets — often valued only for aesthetics — also functioned as everyday instruments of colonial control.
Keywords: British Empire; colonial India; design history; iconography; Indo-British cotton trade; textile tickets; visual culture
DOI being generated
Cite this article:
SSiruguri, R. (2025). The visual language of textile tickets in
20th-century British India: A collection from B. Taylor and Co. Visible Language, 59(3), 379–399. https://www.visible-language.org/journal/issue-59-3-textile-tickets/
First published online May 22, 2025. © 2025 Visible Language — this article is open access, published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
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