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Lot Essay
This finely woven silk fragment is one of a group of early Azerbaijan embroideries worked in surface darning with a design heavily informed by Safavid court silks and velvets but also carpets, miniatures and tilework (Michael Franses, "Safavid-style Domestic Embroideries from Historical Azerbaijan, 1550-1800", in Boralevi et al., Stars of the Caucasus, Silk Embroideries from Azerbaijan, London 2017, p.39). The colour palette of this particular group is typified by pale blues, greens and apricot as well as some natural but fugitive dyes which soften to cream. Square silk embroideries of this size served as wrapping cloths for women's personal utensils similar to the cloths used in Anatolia known as "bokçe".
The embroidered pattern, which has a loose naivety, is formed of individual vertical, bulbous palmettes enclosed within a lozenge lattice formed of diagonally arranged angular leaves within an alternating leaf and S-scroll cartouche border. The pierced ground upon which the silk design is darned is most unusual. It is not, as one might first suspect, the result of an extremely heavy corrosion where the dark brown or black is now absent, but rather an intentional and technically challenging method which creates a lace-like, pierced ground. This unusual technique makes the overall textile significantly more delicate and probably explains whey there are few other surviving examples. Silk darned, squared embroideries with similar border patterns are seen in M. Franses et al, op.cit, Chapter 4, which include an example formerly with Indjoudjian Freres, Paris, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (08.178.3).
The embroidered pattern, which has a loose naivety, is formed of individual vertical, bulbous palmettes enclosed within a lozenge lattice formed of diagonally arranged angular leaves within an alternating leaf and S-scroll cartouche border. The pierced ground upon which the silk design is darned is most unusual. It is not, as one might first suspect, the result of an extremely heavy corrosion where the dark brown or black is now absent, but rather an intentional and technically challenging method which creates a lace-like, pierced ground. This unusual technique makes the overall textile significantly more delicate and probably explains whey there are few other surviving examples. Silk darned, squared embroideries with similar border patterns are seen in M. Franses et al, op.cit, Chapter 4, which include an example formerly with Indjoudjian Freres, Paris, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (08.178.3).