The Collection

The story of this piece

A black pashmina carrying the entire animal kingdom — peacocks in the canopy, elephants at the border, deer and birds through the branches. Shameema worked this with two students over fourteen months; the elephant border at the foot took eight weeks alone.

A note on the hand. Shameema works sozni — the finest needlework Kashmir produces. She prefers walnut-dyed thread and works only in daylight, beside a window that faces east. Her father was a copyist of Quranic manuscripts; she says she inherited the steady hand, not the calligraphy.