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Lot Essay
This large textile, richly embroidered in metal thread, would appear to commemorate the presentation of gifts, probably including a copy of the Qur'an, from the Queen Mother (Valide Sultan), Pertevniyal, the mother of of Sultan 'Abd al-'Aziz (r.1861-76), to her nephew Isma'il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt. The opening verses of the Arabic text states that the textile was commissioned by the Valide Sultan to commemorate an unspecified event in Egypt. The final couplet refers to the presentation of gifts to the Khedive as well as an abjad chronogram which gives the date as AH 1293/1876-7 AD.
Ruling Egypt as Khedive from 1863-79, Isma'il Pasha is remembered for his programme of modernisation and expansion at the expense of neighbouring countries. However, his ambitions put the Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan in extreme debt, resulting in the selling of the national shares in the Suez Canal Company to the British government and his eventual deposition by Sultan Abdulhamid II under pressure from the British and French (Eugene Rogan, The Arabs, London, 2011, p.101). Interestingly, despite the gifts from the Valide Sultan, including this textile, Isma'il Pasha could not speak Arabic although during his reign Arabic began to displace Ottoman Turkish as the languge of administration in Egypt (Robert Collins, A History of Modern Sudan, Cambridge, 2008, p.10).
Ruling Egypt as Khedive from 1863-79, Isma'il Pasha is remembered for his programme of modernisation and expansion at the expense of neighbouring countries. However, his ambitions put the Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan in extreme debt, resulting in the selling of the national shares in the Suez Canal Company to the British government and his eventual deposition by Sultan Abdulhamid II under pressure from the British and French (Eugene Rogan, The Arabs, London, 2011, p.101). Interestingly, despite the gifts from the Valide Sultan, including this textile, Isma'il Pasha could not speak Arabic although during his reign Arabic began to displace Ottoman Turkish as the languge of administration in Egypt (Robert Collins, A History of Modern Sudan, Cambridge, 2008, p.10).