An Ottoman Embroidery, Turkey, Late 17th Century

Neville Kingston (1955-2019);

Christie's, London, 27 October 2022, lot 149;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Embroidery formed an important part of Ottoman textile production, particularly from the 16^th century onwards. By 1525, cloth makers and embroiderers were recorded as working in the Topkapi palace workshops, where designs drew from the wider decorative vocabulary of the Ottoman court. The same motifs appeared across different media, particularly the tulips and other stylised flowers associated with Ottoman ceramics and woven textiles.

The present textile, and the following lot, are characteristic of 17^th century Ottoman embroidery, with their strong use of red and blue silk against a pale ground and large-scale floral decoration. Here, the dominant palmettes are linked by comparatively small stems resulting in a bold, almost chequerboard, design, animated by the wild treatment of the palmettes set in alternating diagonals. Closely related but smaller embroideries were sold at Christie’s, London, 10 October 2013, lots 144 and 145, and 27 April 2012, lot 818.