Cover
1800-1876 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
At the end of the 18th century embroidery designs began to develop into rigid and heavily stylised borders for towels and napkins. The colours of 18th and 19th century embroideries were originally very bright but many have faded to pleasing pastel shades; often great quantities of metal thread were used. Napkins were mainly used to clean fingers during meals, but were also used as decoration and as covers. Their designs were consistently inventive.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Cotton, embroidered with silk in double running variations and combinations and in musabak, and with metal thread in slanted satin stitch and satin filling in squares |
| Brief description | embroidered, 1880s, Turkish |
| Physical description | Cover, cotton embroidered with silk in double running variations and combinations and musabak and with metal thread in slanted satin stitch and satin filling in squares. The narrow border edged in green extends along all four sides and above the main border. It contains flowerheads paired in colours, red/light red and pink/blue, separated by three diagonal green lines. The main border contains green cypress trees, each on a trinagular mound, alternating with a straight floral spray froma blue bowl. The flowers on the spray are either red/light red or pink/blue. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Association | |
| Summary | At the end of the 18th century embroidery designs began to develop into rigid and heavily stylised borders for towels and napkins. The colours of 18th and 19th century embroideries were originally very bright but many have faded to pleasing pastel shades; often great quantities of metal thread were used. Napkins were mainly used to clean fingers during meals, but were also used as decoration and as covers. Their designs were consistently inventive. |
| Bibliographic reference | Illustrated in 'Ottoman Embroidery' by Marianne Ellis and Jennifer Wearden (V&A Publications, 2001); plate 145 |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 679-1877 |
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| Record created | January 8, 2001 |
| Record URL |
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