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Brigitte Singh first came to Sanganer, Jaipur’s hand-blockprinting centre, as a student of miniatures three decades ago. Today, the visual almanac of her work gives us a truly alternate way to read medieval and modern civilisational encounters—through the evolution and transmission of motifs and craft techniques over centuries.

Brigitte Singh’s exquisite work with blockprints is a form of re-enacted design history, rendered in visual rather than textual terms. Uncovering and reaching down to the purer forms, to the composite aesthetic of the 18th century, it offers a singular source of access to a seminal epoch in design. This volume illustrates how Singh has approached her craft with an archaeological devotion, peeling off dusty layers from the long-obscured story of blockprinting in the subcontinent. Her work yields a truly Indian aesthetic, fully formed and yet open to influences, full of grand narratives but so dense with detail and meaning that in every telling, something new and essential is revealed both to the raconteur and the audience.