Panel of Chintz for a Woman's Skirt

Starting in the early 1600s Portuguese traders brought Indian hand-dyed fabrics to Europe, where the Hindi name for them, chint, became chintz. During this same period, Spanish conquests in the Western Hemisphere led to direct trade between Asia and the Americas. This lively patterned chintz displays scrolls and flowers typical of a European design vocabulary as well as tiny scenes of animals and hunters. It exemplifies the creative designs that captivated global consumers and may have been made for the Dutch market, although it could equally have been worn by a woman in New Spain in the 1700s.