Embroidered towel of woven flax

Given by A. Onegine, esq.

Given to the musuem with the commentary that it was embroidered by Crimean Tatar women and was similar in character to other Tatar and Turco-Syrian scarfts of this class made in the Grecian Archipelago and Asia Minor. (Mr Cole's Revise, 1888).

This object may well belong to the type described in eighteenth-century letters. In her book 'A Journey throught the Crimea to Constantinople in a series of letters', written in the year 1786, Lady Elizabeth Craven describes an Ottoman embroidered handkerchief she was given by Kaima-Kan. Letter XLII (page 181) was written at Sevastopol on April 6th, 1786 and the gift was 'a very fine beautiful handkerchief of his sister's embroidery, which the Governer told me I must accept. I desired the Kaim-Kan to thank her, and tell her I would keep it for her sake. It is of muslin, the borders embroidered with different coloured silk and gold and what I could not comprehend, both sides are the same'.

968-1868