BURSA, TURKEY, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURY

Known as a çatma panel, the present lot would have been used in the 17th century as a cushion cover (yastik yüzü). Ottoman rooms were designed with low platforms, which were then furnished with bolster cushions against which to lean. The city of Bursa in north-western Anatolia, not far from Istanbul, was an important centre of textile production from the mid-fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The weavers there specialised in textiles intended for the decoration of interiors, and many fine examples of çatma panels are attributable to Bursa. They were typically decorated, as here, with arched lappets at each end. Each panel was usually a loom width (slightly more than two feet), again reflected in the present lot, (Ekhtiar et al., 2011, p.325). For a yastik also attributed to the 17th century and employing similarly striking ‘zig-zag’ detailing within large roundels, see Atasoy et al., 2001, p.320, fig.365.