OTTOMAN TURKEY, 17TH CENTURY

This textile is remarkable for its large size and for the scale of the tulip and artichoke palmette motifs. A similar panel, dated to the late 16th or early 17th century is in a German private collection, exhibited in 2011 at the LA Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem. In the catalogue that accompanied that exhibition, Gisela Helmecke remarks upon the density of pattern and the strong colours as features that create a striking effect, something clearly apparent in the impressive panels offered here (Gisela Helmecke, Splendour of Colour, Shimmer of Silk. Embroidery of the Ottoman Empire, exhibition catalogue, Jerusalem, 2010, no.7, p.9). The associated borders of our textile panel are probably very close in date to the rest of the panel. A further panel which was part of the same exhibition in Jerusalem and dated to the early 17th century has almost identical borders to our present panel, (Gisela Helmecke, op.cit., no. 7, p. 29). Two further smaller panels with very closely related designs were sold in these Rooms, 10 October 2013, lots 143 and 144.