Pichwai & Indian Folk Art

We print these in Udaipur, which is a short drive from where two of these traditions were made. Pichwai are the cloth hangings painted behind the Shrinathji idol at Nathdwara, usually dense with cows, lotus and gopis and tied to a particular festival — ours is a Gopashtami composition.

The Mewar miniature school is the court painting of this region: flat jewel colour, patterned ground, and a royal elephant in procession as its most recognisable subject. Kalighat folk art comes from 19th-century Bengal instead — bold outline, swept brushwork and a deliberately simplified figure.

These traditions were not painted for walls like ours — pichwai hung behind the deity at Nathdwara, Kalighat sheets were sold to pilgrims outside the Kalighat temple in Calcutta, and Mewar miniatures were held in the hand. What we print are faithful reproductions at a size a modern room can carry, which means the detail that was meant to be read at arm's length survives at two metres.

These are reproductions printed on canvas, not hand-painted originals, and we would rather say so plainly than leave it to be assumed.