Sotheby's Arts of the Islamic World
London | 09 Apr 2014, 10:30 AM | L14220

LOT 38
AN OTTOMAN WOVEN SILK CALLIGRAPHIC TEXTILE, PROBABLY BURSA,TURKEY, CIRCA 1800

fragment of rectangular form woven with cream and red silks with alternating major and minor chevron bands filled with calligraphy, palmette cartouches and roundels

textile: 132.6 by 75.5cm.with mount: 142 by 86cm.
ESTIMATE 8,000-10,000 GBP

CATALOGUE NOTE
inscriptions
In the wide band: repeat of the shahada
Bordering the wide band: Qur’an, chapter II (al-Baqara), part of verse 144 (above); chapter III (Al ‘Imran), verse 96
(below)
In the roundels and cartouches: Invocations to God through three of his attributes.

Bearing testimony to the importance of textiles in Ottoman society, examples such as the present silk textile, with a chevron pattern incorporating the Shahadah, or declaration of faith, would have been made as special commissions, particularly during the Ottoman dynasty's rule over Medina (1517–1916 AD) when it was custom to send such textiles to adorn the Ka’bah in Mecca and replaced yearly.
Fragments with the same loom pattern are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no.1063-1900), the Textile
Museum, Washington (inv. no. TM 3.158a) and the David Collection, Copenhagen (inv. no. 20/1971).