Indian Textile Printing Block

A zigzag band of tangled motifs runs between hatched borders, ending in a snipped corner.

This carved wood textile printing block is from Varanasi, India, and dates to the 20th century. Varanasi is a long-established center of textile work in India, known for silk weaving and for cloth decorated by hand with carved wooden blocks. What shows is a long, narrow slab with a notched, angled end on one side. Fine diagonal hatching and ruled lines frame a central strip of interlocking angular leaf forms. The surface is a smooth, dark, slightly greasy-looking black. It is 6.5 inches wide, 2.5 deep and 2.5 high.

Even the broken corner looks like it meant it.