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Lot Essay
After the siege of Vienna in the late 17th century the Ottoman army left behind a number of textiles executed in the same technique of metal thread wound around a core and then applied to a velvet ground (Ernst Petrasch, Reinhard Sänger, Eva Zimmermann and Hans Georg Majer, Die Karlsruher Türkenbeute, Munich, 1991, no.37 pp.110-111 for example). While the style of the present large panel, both in the calligraphy and in the border would be consistent with such a dating, the use of cotton in the structure of the velvet indicates a date of no earlier than the eighteenth century.
The inscription has proved very difficult to decipher. It is not in Turkish and does not appear to be in Arabic. Yet it is well written with considerable elegance of lettering. The design also is worked very carefully so that the long central vertical alif and the long horizontal yes are placed exactly over the seams between the six panels of velvet that were needed to produce a hanging of this size.
The inscription has proved very difficult to decipher. It is not in Turkish and does not appear to be in Arabic. Yet it is well written with considerable elegance of lettering. The design also is worked very carefully so that the long central vertical alif and the long horizontal yes are placed exactly over the seams between the six panels of velvet that were needed to produce a hanging of this size.