VELOURS « GRICCIA » A LA MANDORLE ROUGE

ITALY FOR THE OTTOMAN MARKET, 16th-17th CENTURY Red-purple silk velvet on a beige background, decorated with the Renaissance "griccia" pattern, consisting of a wide undulating red band on which stands out a sinuous and twisted trunk bearing a large flower formed by a pomegranate surrounded by acanthus leaves in a mandorla. The wide central band is surrounded by floral motifs forming scrolls and arabesques. Width of the strip without the borders: 56 cm The use of Italian velvets at the Ottoman court shows the links between the two worlds. Trade in the 16th century went both ways, and a large quantity of Italian silks in the Ottoman style were made in Venice and Florence for the Sublime Porte. Their similarity sometimes makes it difficult to attribute them to one or the other origin, and only a technical analysis can sometimes decide. Many Flemish paintings from the end of the 15th century depict Italian velvet, as for example in the famous triptych by Hugo van der Goes, ca. 1476-79, kept in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (Uffizi Gallery no. 00281184), or in various paintings by Hans Memling, The caftans (ceremonial robes) of the Ottoman sultans were also made of Italian velvet, such as the one attributed to Mehmet IV (r.1648-1687) and preserved in the Topkapi Palace Museum, decorated with a "griccia" pattern very similar to the fragment proposed here, with some variations of more "Ottoman" motifs. This velvet is dated to the late 15th-16th century by Walter Denny in the exhibition catalogue Venice and the Orient, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2006, cat. 80, pp. 188 and 323. Nevertheless, Italian weavers continued to produce velvets in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries based on earlier models. It is therefore difficult to date them precisely. A velvet strip almost identical to the one offered here, attributed to Florentine Italy, is included in the catalogue: Works of Art from the Islamic World & Orientalist Paintings, Kent Antiques, London, 2021, cat. 33, p. 80. Expert : L.S. Very worn in places, old restorations; many pieces sewn back and a small piece brought back; black stain on one side.