Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Details
Associated place
- Africa › Egypt (find spot)
- Africa › Egypt › Cairo › Cairo › Fustat (possible, find spot)
- Ancient Near East (place of creation)
Date

Mamluk Period (1250 - 1517)

Material and technique

linen, embroidered with blue silk

Dimensions

ground fabric 10.3 x 9.4 cm (height x width), ground fabric 31 / 27 threads/cm (thread count), ground fabric 0.04 cm max. (thread diameter), ground fabric 0.01 cm min. (thread diameter), additional fabric 0.06 cm (thread diameter)

Material index

linen, silk

Technique index

woven, embroidered

Object type index

tunic, textile

No. of items

1

Credit line

Presented by Professor Percy Newberry, 1941.

Accession no.

EA1993.90
Further reading

Ellis, Marianne, Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, in association with Greenville: Curious Works Press, 2001), no. 19 on p. 34, |illus. p. 34

Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt by Marianne Ellis
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The design of this motif is very intriguing but its significance remains a mystery. Its rigid hexagon shape is similar to the previous example, No.18 [EA1993.76], but instead of stepped outlines, there are little decorative hooks that can be read as hands or even little faces. As on No.18, the central pattern of V shapes is left in reserve and the background filled with blue silk in pattern darning in running stitch. The faint vertical white lines are where the worker has darned under one thread to avoid leaving long floating stitch across the ground. Judging by the fine scale of the work and its size, which is larger than the ones worked as repeating patterns, it could have been one of those arranged on either side of the neck slit of a tunic.