AN EMBROIDERED PANELOTTOMAN TURKEY, LATE 17TH / EARLY 18TH CENTURYAN EMBROIDERED PANELOTTOMAN TURKEY, LATE 17TH / EARLY 18TH CENTURYThe plainwoven linen ground embroidered in blue and red silks with animated diagonal bands of red tulips and blue artichoke palmettes, the interstices with small pomegranates and leaves, in a narrow border of blue palmettes, backed with cotton83 1/2 x 37 1/4in. (212 x 120cm.)PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF NEVILLE KINGSTON细节 AN EMBROIDERED PANELOTTOMAN TURKEY, LATE 17TH / EARLY 18TH CENTURYThe plainwoven linen ground embroidered in blue and red silks with animated diagonal bands of red tulips and blue artichoke palmettes, the interstices with small pomegranates and leaves, in a narrow border of blue palmettes, backed with cotton83 1/2 x 37 1/4in. (212 x 120cm.) 拍品专文 Embroidery may have first caught on in the Ottoman Empire as a less labour-intensive alternative to weaving. Nonetheless, by the sixteenth century it had become a courtly art, with 36 cloth makers and embroiderers recorded in the Topkapi palace workshops in 1525 (various authors, Embroidered Flowers from Thrace to Tartary, David Black Oriental Carpets, London, 1981, p. 10). These craftspeople were variously tasked with making shirts, kerchiefs, and even underpants, as well as wall hangings like this. At the court workshop, embroiderers adopted motifs common from other areas of material culture: thus the bold alternating red tulip and blue artichoke flowerheads in the field of this textile are also seen on Iznik pottery. A smaller but otherwise near-identical embroidery, the field with bold alternating red tulips and blue artichoke heads in a toothed border, was sold in Christie’s South Kensington, 11 April 2008, lot 560.PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF NEVILLE KINGSTON (1955-2019)Neville Kingston (1955-2019) is best known for his collections of Central Asian carpets and textiles but like most collectors, his interests were far ranging. His fascination with shapes and motifs as well as the technique of embroidery led to him collecting textiles from Eastern Europe to China and Japan. In this picture, he is seen admiring an embroidery in Northern Vietnam in September 2011. Born in Dublin and a veterinarian by trade, Kingston travelled extensively always seeking out unusual textiles and carpets and taking the opportunity to attend and view auctions and sales wherever he went. In the introduction to his book, Turkmen Carpets. The Neville Kingston Collection, London 2016, Kingston wrote that collecting carpets and textiles ‘bought a rich delight of patterns, colours and textures to my eyes and to my touch. I have enjoyed owning the pieces, researching them and constantly discovering new depths to them’. This collection is illustrative of another small area of his passion, that for Ottoman embroideries.