SAFAVID IRAN, SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY

Safavid embroideries of this type are extremely rare. Only a few examples appear to have survived, most now in museum collections. Some have decoration contained within medallions, but others – like ours – include repeating figural compositions on a large scale. The large size of our panel, and most of the others recorded, seem to indicate that these were textiles intended for display, whether as part of a costume or otherwise. All are rather sketchily drawn, suggesting perhaps that the motifs were not drawn directly from existing cartoons, but rather that they were inspired from contemporary designs in other media – paintings for instance. Many of the features of our textile can be paralleled in contemporaneous published examples. The small birds that alternate with the figures on our textile can be found on a related example which sold in at Christie’s, King Street, 5 October 2010, lot 229. They are also found as part of the denser decoration on an impressive coat in the Museum of Arts and Industry in Vienna, attributed to Kashan, circa 1600 (F. Sarre and F.R. Martin, Meisterwerke Muhammedanischer Kunst, London, 1987, 1987, pl.208).