PERSIAN & ISLAMIC ART: THE COLLECTION OF THE BERKELEY TRUST
Sale L04626 lot 39
A VOIDED SILK VELVET AND METAL THREAD BROCADE PANEL, TURKEY, ATTRIBUTED TO BURSA
London, New Bond Street 25,000—35,000 GBP Session 1
12 Oct 04 2:30 PM
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 123,200 GBP
mounted, box glazed, approximately 159 by 124cm., 5ft. 3in. by 4ft. 1in.
16th century, probably before 1550
composed of two conjoined loom widths, woven with a bold ogival leaf and vine trellis, clasped by crowns and enclosing stylised hybrid tulip and carnation spray palmettes with leaves
Pile: silk velvet; crimson
Brocade: metal thread wound on an ivory silk core
PROVENANCE
Baron Edmond de Rothschild
Colnaghi, London
EXHIBITED
Imperial Ottoman Textiles, Colnaghi, London, 1980, no.1
Treasures of Islam, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, Switzerland, 1985, no.342
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES
Donald King, Imperial Ottoman Textiles, Colnaghi, London, 1980, no.1, p.14
Geneva 1985, no.342, p.331
CATALOGUE NOTE
The design of this velvet is on a magnificent scale; the bold drawing and the contrast between the gleaming crimson silk and the metal thread is used to splendid and dramatic effect. The ‘Crowns of St. Stephen’ seem barely able to constrain the bold ogival trellis which springs between them; additional dynamism is generated by the spiralling stems with counterposed leaves which support the thistle-like palmettes. The crowns themselves are a motif influenced by European textiles, but the palmettes ingeniously incorporate a more typically Turkish repertoire of stylised tulips issuing carnation blooms in one register and plump pomegranates in the other.

Errera, Isabelle, Catalogue d’Étoffes, Brussels, 1927, no.222, p.205 illustrates a panel of similar design to the present lot, which she purchased from Benguiat in 1894. Errera, ibid. p.206, also refers to a related textile depicted in the painting by Bernard Strigel (1461-1528) of Johann Cuspinian and his family. Johann Cuspinian (1473-1529) was a noted humanist and scholar, who became Rector of Vienna University in 1500. Both Emperor Maximilian and later Charles V sent him on numerous diplomatic missions including to Hungary, Bohemia and Poland. After the Battle of Mohács (Hungary 1526) between the Ottomans and the Hungarians, he became particularly interested in the Turkish question, publishing both political and historical writings on the subject, the most important being ‘De Turcarum, origine, religione et tyrannide’.

The painting of Cuspinian and his family was in the [Kaiser-Friedrich] Museum, Berlin, as referenced by Errera, op.cit; and is probably the panel (now privately owned) of his family as a branch of the Holy Kinship, referred to in the caption to the painting of Emperor Maximilian I with His Family (1516) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (see www.khm.at); the latter picture was painted to celebrate the double betrothal of 1515 in Vienna, which sealed the union between the Habsburgs and the Magyar-Jagiellon royal family and was then received by Cuspinian, who had taken part in the negotiations. Cuspinian subsequently commissioned the painting of his own family from Strigel as a companion to it.

A Sotheby’s archive photograph of the painting shows Cuspinian, his wife and two sons grouped beneath a tree, each figure labeled with a biblical name. Cuspinian’s right arm encircles his youngest son, revealing the heavy brocade of his sleeve, in which the motif of a tulip issuing a carnation and flanked by curled feathery leaves is clearly distinguished; the ‘St.Stephen’s’ crown can also be seen. The painted tulip differs slightly from that in the present lot, in that it has five petals rather than three, but it certainly illustrates that brocades of this pattern were in production in the early 16th century and available in Central and Eastern Europe by c.1516.

There are five other published examples of related velvets, including: Expositions des Arts Musulmans, Paris, 1903, no.777, p.99; the panel from the Museé royaux du Cinquantenaire, Errera, op.cit. and Atasoy, Mackie, Denny et al, Ipek, Azimuth, Maryland, 2002, pl.89; a piece from the Kelekian collection illustrated in Migeon, G. & Guiffrey, J, La Collection Kelekian: Etoffes et Tapis d’Orient et de Venise, Paris, 1908, pl.83 and von Falke, O., Kunstegeschichte der Seidenweberei, 1913, Vol.II, fig.604; another ex-Kelekian fragment, see Cittoni, Tesori Ottomani del XVI e XVII Secolo, Milan, 1981, no.8, pp.23-4 and a large panel composed of four loom widths sold by the Salle Rossini, Paris, 9th September 2002, lot 434; see Hali 126, January-February 2003, Auction Price Guide, p.131.

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