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Chintz


Chintz (from the plural of chint) was originally glazed calico textiles, initially specifically those imported from India, printed with designs featuring flowers and other patterns in different colours, typically on a light plain background. Since the 19th century the term has also been used for the style of floral decoration developed in those calico textiles, but then used more widely, for example on chintzware pottery and wallpaper. Chintz designs are mostly European patterns loosely derived from the style of Indian designs themselves reflecting, via Mughal art, decorative traditions in Islamic art such as the arabesque, and especially the Safavid art of Persia.

Unglazed calico was traditionally called "cretonne". The word calico is derived from the name of the Indian city Calicut (Kozhikkode in native Malayalam) to which it had a manufacturing association. In contemporary language the word "chintz" and "chintzy" can be used to refer to clothing or furnishings which are vulgar or in appearance, and commonly in informal speech, to refer to cheap, low quality, or gaudy things, including personal behavior.

Chintz was originally a woodblock printed, painted or stained calico produced in India from 1600 to 1800 and popular for bed covers, quilts and draperies. Around 1600, Portuguese and Dutch traders were bringing examples of Indian chintz into Europe on a small scale, but during the century English and French merchants began sending large quantities. By 1680 more than a million pieces of chintz were being imported into England per year, and a similar quantity was going to France and the Dutch Republic. These early imports were probably mostly used for curtains, furnishing fabrics, and bed hangings and covers (Samuel Pepys bought a set for his wife). It has been suggested that wearing them as clothes began when these were replaced and given to maidservants, who made them into dresses, and also that they were first worn as linings.


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