OTTOMAN EMBROIDERY

show a drawn lattice. Another layout that appears with some frequency features wavy vines with flowers projecting to the sides. Both types of design are favoured on silk brocades and velvets, where technical considerations and the complexity of designing for drawloom weaving encourage the use of repeat patterns (7, 15). But needlework has no such technical constraints, so we may suppose that the use of pattern repeatsin the textiles of our group imitated the fashionable luxury brocades and velvets of the classical period. 12 The availability of such items as direct models would also have been convenient, as only a small section of the design repeat would have been needed. When it comes to the overall decorative programme, what sources did the embroiderers of our

group draw on? It is noticeable that the range of layouts used is somewhat more varied than the drawloom textile-inspired repeats so favoured in traditional early Ottoman embroideries. Instead there are schemes that seem to mirror their use in other media: a central medallion as in the arts of the book ( IV , XI , 5); an over-all lattice as in ceramics ( X , 6); repeating small medallions as in carpets ( I , 1); small-scale reciprocal geometric repeat motifs as in stonework, wood, and mother-of-pearl inlay ( VIII , 10); and undulating vines as seen in textiles and ceramics ( VI , XII , 12). If the range is a bit surprising, so too are the inventive applications of the designs. One piece features a geometric repeat of reciprocal trefoils ( VIII ). The trefoil has a long tradition of use in architecture. It

V . Below: Triple Balls and Leaves, Ottoman embroidered panel. Silk on silk, o.64 x 0.66m (2'1" x 2'2"). Private collection

6. Left: Iznik flask, Turkey, 16th century. The tigerstripe lattice also appears in ceramic wares, later tile revetments and in the arts of the book. British Museum, London, Godman Bequest, 1878.12-30.466

7. Right: Ottoman silk velvet (detail) with paired serrated leaves and large eccentric çintamani crescents, Turkey, 16th century. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 98-984

Petegorsky

Stephen

62 I HALI 144

appears everywhere, from the wooden ceilings of Seljuk mosques to Timurid tilework, pre-Ottoman beylık stonework (10) and depictions of tents in Persian paintings. In Ottoman art its most frequent use is in a single row as a frieze, divider or border in tile revetments, motherof-pearl inlay, and in lengths of furnishing velvet. The use of the trefoil as an overall repeat design is a natural extension of its appearance in the other Ottoman arts. Indeed, such overall designs make an effective appearance in 17th century Anatolian village rugs. 13

Overall geometric patterns are not however characteristic of traditional Ottoman embroidery and it is evident that the designer has looked beyond the canon of typical Ottoman silk brocade and velvet designs for inspiration. The same boldness can be seen in the striking use of repeating medallions very similar to those seen in a 15th or 16th century ‘Holbein’ variant rug fragment ( I ,1). The embroidery was certainly not copied from the rug, but both are inspired by the same tradition, and each is an original interpretation of a very old scheme. The appearance of a çintamani lattice is of particular interest (x). A European depiction of a harem scene of about 1590 clearly shows the same lattice pattern in a textile hanging, most likely an embroidery (13). Just as in our embroidery, it has four balls surrounding a central dot, within an identical tiger-stripe