Blue Willow in the Clouds: The Architectural Reuse of British Transferware in Nineteenth-Century India
A lecture by Heeryoon Shin (Bard College)

In nineteenth-century India, the popular Willow pattern transferware from Staffordshire found a new life as affixed ornamentations in palace interiors. Set into walls in original form, or broken into flat, rectilinear pieces to meticulously cover walls, niches, and balconies, Blue Willow plates and their luminous blue and white surfaces effectively framed gods and kings and created a multisensory experience of space. Taking two late nineteenth-century sites, Juna Mahal in Dungarpur and Junagadh Fort in Bikaner, as points of departure, Heeryoon Shin explores how the design and materiality of Willow ware, as well as its display, acquired new meaning and purpose in Indian palace spaces. Evoking the tradition of tiled ornamentation and the display of ceramics in the chini khana (“China room”) in India, while also referencing European porcelain rooms, the transferware-covered walls reveal the complex cultural negotiations and material and political aspirations of nineteenth-century India. By examining the Indian reuse of British transferware, this talk complicates the conventional narrative of West looking East and highlights the nonlinear and multidirectional flows of ceramic culture.

March 4, 2026 at 6pm

38 West 86th Street, BGC Lecture Hall