OTTOMAN EMBROIDERY

of media in the 16th-17th century classical era: cloudbands ( VII , 9, 11), tulips ( III , 2, XII ), pomegranates ( V 1, 15 ), çintamani balls and stripes ( IX , 11), reciprocal trefoils ( VIII , 10), serrated leaves ( V , 7) and so on. However, many examples diverge from the stylistic norms of known Ottoman embroideries, either in the drawing of the pattern elements or in the overall layout and design. There are also many technical differences. Early Ottoman embroideries are rarely executed on a silk ground: linen is the norm, while the new group is without exception on silk. 4 Moreover, the silk is different from atlas, the finely woven satin we see in the occasional silk-ground example. Here the ground material is a relatively coarse, balanced plainweave, unevenly woven, with variations in the thickness of the silk yarns forming sections with differing textures. Traditional Ottoman embroideries are typically worked on lengths of fabric about 50cm (20") wide, but here the fabric is consistently narrower, about 30cm (12"), indicating the use of a narrower loom. Another notable difference is that the separate narrow lengths of fabric are joined before being embroidered. This means that the

embroidered decoration bridges the seams in the ground fabric (3). As a general rule Ottoman pieces are embroidered separately and then joined, producing breaks in the design and slight mismatches at the seams. Our group is also different in that in all but one example, the pattern is equally readable from both front and back, with only a small technical difference between the two faces. 5 Traditional early

III .Below left: Tulips,Ottoman embroidered panel. Silk on silk, o.69 x 0.74m (2'3" x 2'5"). Private collection

2. Above: Ottoman tulip design silk kaftan with seraser appliqué, Turkey, 17th century. Topkapı Saray Museum,Istanbul, 13-514. Courtesy Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC

3. Right: Detail of ( I ). The characteristic stitch has long floatsanda ridge along one edge of the motif, with the pattern crossing the joins. The design can be read on both sides of the fabric, but the raised edge appears only on the front

4. Below right: Detail showing the openwork edge found on some of the group

Ottoman embroidery tends to be more economical in the use of silk, and only occasionally is the pattern readable from the back. The most striking difference, however, is that most of the textiles in our group are worked in a single type of stitch not normally used in traditional pieces. Similar to a closed blanket stitch, it has long floats and a characteristic outlining ridge on one side of each motif (3). The presence of this ridge on the ‘right’ side of the textile is the sole difference in the appearance of the work on front and back. By contrast, traditional Ottoman embroideries use a variety of stitches on any given example: running stitch, atma, chain stitch, and others. Their surface has a distinctive and varied texture that is very different from the equally distinctive appearance of our group. 6

Some of our group also have a type of openwork running the full length of each side – a section about 12mm wide beginning some 10mm from the outer selvedges, where the warp threads are omitted. To create this openwork, the wefts are gathered in bundles of 8-12 threads and tied at the edges of this warpvoided section (4). No traditional early Ottoman embroideries are known with this feature. 7

StephenPetegorsky

60 I HALI 144