The “Canton Shawl” in Imperial Spain: From Global Commodity to National Symbol

Abstract

This paper focuses on the history of the “Canton shawl” in Spain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The embroidered shawl produced in Canton, in southern China, was popular amongst women in the Americas and Europe in the nineteenth century. The shawl has a unique history in Spain where it became a national symbol, often seen to represent the archetypal “Spanish” woman. In this paper I will explore the history of how this foreign item of clothing was incorporated into the nationalist project in Spain in the nineteenth century and what that can tell us about the dwindling Spanish empire.

Biography

Meha Priyadarshini is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh. Her research lies at the intersection of global history and material culture studies. After working on the trade and use of Chinese porcelain in colonial Mexico, she has more recently started working on histories of fashion and textiles, in particular their connection with imperialism and nationalism. In addition to a project on the circulation of textiles and techniques within the Spanish Empire, she is also working on an AHRC funded digital humanities project, Connecting Threads, on the circulation of Indian textiles in the Greater Caribbean region.

[Image: Mary Cassattt, A Balcony in Seville, 1873]

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