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Cover

1800-1850 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Cover, silk and cotton satin embroidered with silk in straight, running and chain stitches, padded and quilted, interlined, backed with block-printed plain weave cotton with an added fringe.
Orange satin with a wide border on four sides of the central area. The latter being patterned with a large lobed octagonal medallion outlined in dark green, edged in pink and blue with yellow 'beads'; four of the lobed points have a 'spear' motif in white, green, light blue, pink and yellow while a bird profile is placed above the other 4 lobes, in pink and blue edged in white. This medallion frames a star formation of 4 oval blossoms alternating with 4 five-petalled bud forms in red with dark green stems and leaves, the stems of which join to form an 8-pointed star in dark green, in turn containing an 8-petalled rosette with 8 radiating bars in pink, yellow, dark green, light and dark blue all edged in white. The rest of the central space, save the 4 corner units, is decorated with offset repeats of a simple flowering plant with a curving spray in red edged in dark green or blue with dark and light blue details [one exception is deep pink], all pointing to the lateral axis.
The 4 corner units are contained within a trilobed frame repeating the medallion frame colouring, within this is a 5-petalled bud and two and a half oval blossoms in the same colour range as the central medallion.
The wide border is edged either side with a narrow band of a dark green leaf meander bearing red trefoil buds, the outline bands being in chain stitch. The wide central band contains a complex green chain stitch stemmed meander bearing blossoms, leaves and spiky rosettes mainly in red but with details in dark blue, blue and light blue, yellow, beige, pink and white. The orange ground is quilted with small irregular lozenge forms in gold coloured silk. It appears the quilting was done after the main embroidered motifs. The piecing of the ground fabric was completed before the quilting and embroidering.
Warp: orange silk. Weft: white cotton. There is a heavy loosely woven blue cotton plain weave fabric used as an interlining with a layer of loose fibres.
Threads: 2S silk.
Backing: pieced; green ground resist and block printed with offset rows of botehs in an oval form in white, yellow and black with blossoms in two shades of red.
There is a blue silk fringe from a woven heading.

Object details

Category
Object type
Materials and techniques
cotton yarn, silk thread, weaving, embroidering, quilting, printing, sewing.
Brief description
embroidered and quilted, 1800s, Persian
Physical description
Cover, silk and cotton satin embroidered with silk in straight, running and chain stitches, padded and quilted, interlined, backed with block-printed plain weave cotton with an added fringe.
Orange satin with a wide border on four sides of the central area. The latter being patterned with a large lobed octagonal medallion outlined in dark green, edged in pink and blue with yellow 'beads'; four of the lobed points have a 'spear' motif in white, green, light blue, pink and yellow while a bird profile is placed above the other 4 lobes, in pink and blue edged in white. This medallion frames a star formation of 4 oval blossoms alternating with 4 five-petalled bud forms in red with dark green stems and leaves, the stems of which join to form an 8-pointed star in dark green, in turn containing an 8-petalled rosette with 8 radiating bars in pink, yellow, dark green, light and dark blue all edged in white. The rest of the central space, save the 4 corner units, is decorated with offset repeats of a simple flowering plant with a curving spray in red edged in dark green or blue with dark and light blue details [one exception is deep pink], all pointing to the lateral axis.
The 4 corner units are contained within a trilobed frame repeating the medallion frame colouring, within this is a 5-petalled bud and two and a half oval blossoms in the same colour range as the central medallion.
The wide border is edged either side with a narrow band of a dark green leaf meander bearing red trefoil buds, the outline bands being in chain stitch. The wide central band contains a complex green chain stitch stemmed meander bearing blossoms, leaves and spiky rosettes mainly in red but with details in dark blue, blue and light blue, yellow, beige, pink and white. The orange ground is quilted with small irregular lozenge forms in gold coloured silk. It appears the quilting was done after the main embroidered motifs. The piecing of the ground fabric was completed before the quilting and embroidering.
Warp: orange silk. Weft: white cotton. There is a heavy loosely woven blue cotton plain weave fabric used as an interlining with a layer of loose fibres.
Threads: 2S silk.
Backing: pieced; green ground resist and block printed with offset rows of botehs in an oval form in white, yellow and black with blossoms in two shades of red.
There is a blue silk fringe from a woven heading.
Dimensions
  • Length: 110cm
  • Width: 91cm
Marks and inscriptions
(ink on the backing: 'uz nj'.)
Bibliographic reference
Published in 'Iranian Textiles' by Jennifer Wearden and Patricia L Baker (V&A Publishing, 2010) Plate 99 (detail).
Collection
Accession number
785-1876

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Record createdJune 3, 2008
Record URL
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