Jameel Gallery
7, 8 Embroidered napkins
Turkey
1830–70
Embroidery was a popular form of decoration in the Ottoman home. Items such as napkins were embroidered with great quantities of colourful silk and metal thread in inventive designs. Images of ornate houses and gardens (the ideal Ottoman home) were fashionable in the 19th century.
These napkins are embroidered with various stitches including <i>muşabak</i>, meaning ‘netted’, a type of openwork found only on Ottoman embroidery. This can be seen most clearly in the green walls of the buildings in the napkin on the left.
Cotton embroidered with silk and metal thread
Museum nos. T.458, 460-1950
Given by Prof. R.M. Dawkins
[20/09/2012]