The industrial arts of India / By George C.M. Birdwood.

  • George Christopher Molesworth Birdwood
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The industrial arts of India / By George C.M. Birdwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Part II, on The Master Handicrafts of India, is a reprint, with added text, of a portion of my Handbook to the Indian Court at the Paris International Exhibition of 1878. It was so well received, both on the Continent and in this country by people interested in the minor arts of India, that I resolved to publish a carefully rewritten edition of it for general sale. I began by adding to it copious notes from the annual Administration Reports of the local governments of India; and I had examined all these reports, and all the provincial Gazetteers as yet published, when I was asked in the early part of this year to write a popular handbook on the industrial arts of India, in connexion with the reopening of the India Museum under its new administration by the Science and Art Depart- ment at South Kensington. In undertaking this task my intention was to write such a short sketch as I have given of the Hindu Pantheon, without some knowledge of which half the interest of the manual arts of India is lost; and to add a few general observations on the artis- tic character of Indian manufactures. But on examining the India Museum collect'ons in 'detail, and finding how incomplete they were for a systematic representation of the manufacturing resources of India, I saw that what was most wanted was not a handbook to the contents of the Museum, but an index to its deficiencies ; and I therefore resolved to virtually republish a portion of my Handbook, with new information, as the second part of the present work. Although its preparation has been hurried—(the Science and Art Department received charge of the Museum only on the ist of January last)—I hope that it is a fairly trustworthy index of every district and town in British India where manufactures of any special