daniel.d@infonie.be
Dear R. John and you all, Congratulations for this very interesting Salon.
I reproduce here some extracts from the outstanding book written by Nevber
Gürsu, "The Art of Turkish Weaving – Designs through the Ages". Among a
lot of other weavings, all the weavings on display in R. John Howe's
current Salon are discussed in this excellent book. The first photo in R.
John Howe Salon is a photo from one famous "seraser" kaftan with the
"peacock feather or tail" design. The back of this caftan is to be found
in the Metropolitan, the front section in the Boston Museum (1)
Seraser are fabrics
woven entirely in gilt and silver metallic thread. In some cases pure gold
was used instead of gilt. This is true for no other country and clearly
demonstrates the wealth and magnificance of the Ottoman Empire (2)
This kind of fabrics use silver thread or "klaptan" (3) for the
ground weave while the design is woven either of silver thread wound
around ivory colored silk or of gilt thread wound around orange silk. The
contours of he design are usually drawn in Chartreuse(light green) or
orange silk. Nevber Gürsu comments on this piece as follows: (4)
The design reflects all the characteristic features of a "seraser" fabric
with its bold "triple peacock tail" palmette and interstitial rosette
woven in gilt with chartreuse outlines on a silver ground….. The peacock
was a favourite motif in Byzantine art and is frequently encountered in
Byzantine fabrics. Although the peacock itself is very rarely to be seen
in Ottoman art, the peacock tail was used in fabrics from the 16th century
ownwards as a secondary motif accompanied by naturalistic flowers (a
characteristic of the Classical period). Seraser was used in ceremonial
kaftan (and cushion covers). These kaftans also constituted the most
important of the costly gifts presented by the Sultan to foreign envoys or
potentates. The second picture, with an undulating vertical stem pattern
is a "zerbeft" fabric from the second half of the 16th century. A zerbeft
fabric is a silk fabric in which some of the motifs are woven in gold
thread. A great deal of precious metal is used in this type of
fabric(3).
(6) The undulating vertical stem pattern is found alongside the
ogival pattern in several of the decorative arts of the second half of the
16th century. This is a style consisting of a repetitive pattern of
botanically illogical but artistically coherent large pointed serrated
leaves and highly decorative motifs such as tulips, pomegranates and
cypress cones emerging from undulating vertical stems. All of them richly
decorated with different compositions of naturalistic flowers. There are a
number of theories as to the origin of ther vertical undulating stem
pattern. It is very generally believed that this pattern was used in
Chinese brocades of the 14th century and that these exerted a strong
influence on Italian silks. It remains doubtful, however, whether they
were influenced directly by the designs on the Chinese fabric or whether
they were influenced indirectly through the designs on Italian fabrics.
Seraser and zerbeft (the second piece shown) fabrics were the most costly
and luxurious of the fabrics, first manufactured in the Ottoman Empire
during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. They were produced produced
in the Istanbul workshops attached to the Palace in the middle of the 16th
century under the strict supervision and control of the State in order to
prevent an extravagant use of precious metal and, at the same time, to
prevent possible malpractices on the part of the weavers (4-5) I
will add in the following days other information’s concerning the other
weavings presented by R. John. Thanks, Daniel FOOTNOTES (1)
Page 195 (2) Page 188 (3) Pages 28-29 Klaptan = silver and
gold or gilt thread loosely wound around a generally double strand of silk
thread. The silk thread "is not completely hidden". When silver thread is
wound around ivory silk it gives the appearance of silver, but when wound
around yellow silk thread the appearance is of gold. (4-5) Pages
95-107-108 (6) Pages 93-94 |