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deceive. Fraud is not unknown in the carpet and textile world where from time to time all too convincing forgeries are uncovered. 23

In the case of this group of textiles, there is no material evidence to suggest that they are not old. The relatively good condition of the dozen examples illustrated here is balanced by the distressed condition of others. 24 A comparison of the ground material where it has been protected from exposure to light by the embroidery

yarns and in the sewn-under ends reveals, as it should, that light fading has occurred. Dye analysis of two of the pieces yields natural dye sources consistent with those found in Ottoman textiles from the 16th century onwards. The blue is indigo, the yellow weld, the green indigo and weld mixed, and red is from madder in one case and from New World cochineal in the other. 25

If our textiles are forgeries, we might well ask, “of what?” It would be a unique approach to create a

XI .Below: Country Medallion, Ottoman embroideredpanel. Silk on silk, o.64 x 0.97m (2'1" x 3'2"). Private collection

14. Right: Ottoman silk kaftan with çintamani design facings worked in silk, gold and silver (detail), Turkey, ca. 1640. Topkapı Saray Museum, Istanbul, 35/1144, courtesy Alexandria Press, London

StephenPetegorsky

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new category of object, with no established market value, which would inevitably be subject to close scrutiny. Why use an unevenly woven silk ground, a different technique, a different fabric width, and feature a mixture of metropolitan and provincial styles of drawing? Would not more conventional materials, along with consistent court-style drawing, be easier to promote as real, and pass more easily into the marketplace? We may also wonder who would have the knowledge and talent to invent this new class of textiles, particularly as some of the motifs are quite rare. The design of ( IV ) is very close to that of a silk brocade fragment in the study collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum, but the brocade is Italian, in a repeat pattern, presumably copied from a lost Ottoman design. 26 It seems unlikely that a modern-day forger would choose, or even know, such a recondite design. The same embroidery also has an equally rare border pattern, one that appeared in Iznik tiles, but is known only through its publication in a grainy black and white photograph in 1952. 27 So, our forger could be a scholar, but would he or she have the ability to conceive the artistic, original, provincial design we see in ( XI ), and also invent an unknown openwork side finish? That we cannot yet pinpoint the place of manufacture of our embroideries does not say much in the light of the lack of firm evidence for the location of manufacture of various rug and textile products within the Ottoman Empire. The wholesale attribution of a large variety of carpets to Ushak, and the
XII .Right: MediumFine Wavy Vines, Ottoman embroidered panel. Silk on silk, o.58 x 0.91m (1'11" x 3'0"). Private collection

15. Left: Ottoman silk velvet (detail) with pomegranates on articulated wavy vines, Turkey, 16th century. State Historical Museum, Moscow, GIM23499. After Atasoy et al., 2001, pl.83

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longstanding use of the ‘Transylvanian’ label to misattribute another group are but two examples indicative of the limits to our knowledge. Indeed, we do not even have any strong evidence as to where the larger linen-ground traditional Ottoman embroideries were made, or of their dating. Most examples were purchased in the Istanbul market between the 1890s to the 1930s, and there are few examples of these larger pieces to be found in Turkish museums. It is not without precedent for ‘unknown’ textile types to come on to the market, as has happened in recent years with, for example, Kaitag embroideries, 28 and Zakatala pile rugs. 29 In both those cases, however, the source in various villages was soon revealed, but the origin of our group still remains hidden. In fact our embroideries may eventually prove to be akin to other unlikely survivals, where a small number of items were preserved in a protected environment. Such is the case, almost too good to be true, of the discovery of a tiny handful of early Anatolian animal rugs of a type only previously known from European paintings, 30

and of a complete Timurid period silk carpet in good condition, 31 all said to have been found in Tibet.

StephenPetegorsky

Entertaining as conspiracy theories may be, the simplest explanation is that in our embroideries we have found a new, previously unrecorded, group. But until we establish a provenance, the place and time of manufacture of these textiles will certainly remain a mystery. They have been presented and discussed here in the hope that more information will soon be forthcoming. For the moment, the

sheer artistry, the power of their designs, and the beauty of their materials all combine to make a strong case for them being newly discovered, old, and very beautiful products made within the Ottoman artistic milieu.

These embroideries will be exhibited at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts during the 8th American Conference on Oriental Rugs, 20-23 April 2006.

Teodor Tuduc and others, of which a fake ‘Selendi’ was acquired by the V&A in 1933, or the fragments of complex silk textiles acquired as Buyid by the Cleveland Museum of Art and only much later proved to be fakes. See Kurt Erdmann, Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, London 1970, pp.81-85; Sheila Blair, Jonathan M. Bloom, and Anne E. Wardwell, ‘Reevaluating the Date of the Buyid Silks by Epigraphic and

Radiocarbon Analysis’, Ars Orientalis 22, 1992, pp.1-42. 24| In addition to the example cited in note 1 above, I have seen others in poor condition. 25| Thin layer chromatography dye analysis performed by Dr Recep KaradaÌ, Marmara University, Istanbul. 26| Victoria & Albert Museum, London, no.1071-1900, see Atasoy et al, op.cit., fig.52

27| C.E. Arsevan, Les Arts Decoratifs Turcs, Istanbul 1952, fig.102. 28| Given the close similarity in size and format of many of our group to Kaitag embroideries from Daghestan, Robert Chenciner’s discussion of the ritual use of such textiles at birth, marriage, and death in traditional societies may be relevant (Kaitag, Textile Art from Daghestan, London 1993). Such use could occur in addition to the

traditional Ottoman uses of small embroideries as bohçasor wrappers for the presentation of gifts. 29| Anthony Hazledine, ‘On the Road to Zakatala’, HALI 78, 1995, pp.88-93. 30| Michael Franses in Heinrich Kirchheim et al., Orient Stars. A Carpet Collection, London, 1993, pp.265-269. 31| First exhibited in 1996 at the Philadelphia ICOC. See HALI 91, 1997, p.85.

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