A 129-year-old saree, master piece of handmade embroidery belonging to Margao’s late Mathurabai Mahadeo Munj dons the unique exhibition currently underway at Goa State Museum in the city.
Goan embroidery presently in its passing phase is living its past glory in the gallery of this museum and is receiving an overwhelming response from enthusiasts. Sarees, table clothes, wedding cushions, bed-sheets, night dresses and other embroidery artifacts sourced from various Hindu and Catholic families from across the State are on display.
The exhibition includes the work displayed from 1880 to 1985 with an aim to conserve and revive the ancient art of hand embroidery, once widely prevalent, and seen even till the late 20th century.
Apart from the above mentioned, various forms of embroidery like double stitch, plain stitch, puffing, spounge embroidery, bundinis etc are exhibited.
Around 50-odd works of people like late Mathurabai Mahadeo Munj, late Savitribai Prabhu Shastri, Vimal Prabhu Shastri, Mani Sawant, Ivette Pereira, Sunita Furtado, Anita Talawlikar and many others, who had lovingly preserved these items are on display at the week-long ‘Glimpses of Goan Embroidery’ exhibition.
Goa State Museum Director, Radha Bhave looked very happy with the response. “These are some of the selected items that are displayed… we had received more than 70 entries from various sections of society”, she said.
“Through media, we had appealed to people to be part of this exhibition with their beautiful work and the response was outstanding”, she said.
Lamenting that this old and traditional form of art was dying a slow death, Bhave stressed the need to create awareness and inculcate interest among today’s women.
The Goa State Museum as part of its Museum Week celebration, which was inaugurated on Monday, exhibits not only handmade embroidery but machine work too.
To add to the rich collection of embroidered works, ‘Narishakti’ is also participating with their collection ‘Women in Action’, who through their works presented women involved in various day-to-day activities.
[Source]
