Name of Object:

Kaftan fragment

Location:

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Holding Museum:

National Museums of Scotland (NMS)

 About National Museums of Scotland (NMS), Edinburgh

Date of Object:

Hegira, late 10th–early 11th century / AD late 16th– early 17th century

Museum Inventory Number:

A. 1884.65.21

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Silk, cotton and silver brocade (kemha).

Dimensions:

Length 82.5 cm, width 77.5 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Ottoman

Provenance:

Turkey.

Description:

A silk brocade (kemha) fragment that originally formed the back of a child's collarless, short-sleeved kaftan, cut with a straight waist and bell-shaped skirt. The textile is woven with staggered rows of diagonally ascending zigzag bands set at regular intervals, in red, which are further enhanced by a pattern, in miniature, of ‘tiger stripes’ and three circles (known as chintamani), rendered in green. The chintamani motif is common on kemha textiles from about the first half of the AH 10th / AD 16th century. Its origin and meaning are still unclear, but it has been suggested that the triple-circle motif may have had apotropaic associations among Turkic peoples, warding off evil by reflecting it back at the perpetrator, while the tiger-stripes seem to recall the tiger-skin worn by the Iranian superhero Rustam.
The original museum record states that this piece represents a portion of a child's robe-of-honour from Constantinople or Bursa. Possibly arriving in Turkey via Syria, the complex weaving technique adopted on this textile, known as lampas weave, was used by Ottoman weavers in the late AH 9th–early 10th /AD late 15th–early 16th century. The most important Ottoman silk manufactory was at Bursa but in the AH 10th / AD 16th century, court workshops were also set up in Istanbul, the Ottoman capital. Kemha garments were designed to emphasise the imperial status of the sultan and his family even in death, when such garments were often draped over imperial cenotaphs or sandukas.
This fragment is part of a group of garments that was brought to Europe by an art dealer and cut up with some of the resulting front and back sections subsequently divided between the V&A in London and the Royal Museum in Edinburgh.

View Short Description

Silk brocades like the one used for this fragmented child kaftan were made in the Ottoman empire between the AH 10th and 11th / AD 16th and 17th centuries, first in the imperial workshops at Bursa. Later in the 10th- / 16th-century court workshops were also set up in Istanbul, the Ottoman capital.

How date and origin were established:

Kemha textiles were popular in the Ottoman Empire between the late 10th–early 11th / late 16th–early 17th centuries.

How Object was obtained:

Purchased from Mr Tiano of Constantinople in 1884.

How provenance was established:

Items such as this kaftan are known to have been worked in the Ottoman silk-weaving workshops at Bursa or Istanbul during the late 10th–early 11th / late 16th–early 17th centuries.

Selected bibliography:

Atasoy, N., Denny, W. B., Mackie, L. W., and Tezcan, H., Ipek, the Crescent and the Rose: Imperial Ottoman Silks and Velvets, London, 2000 (for a discussion of similar Ottoman textiles).

Citation of this web page:

Ulrike Al-Khamis "Kaftan fragment" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;uk;Mus03;42;en

Prepared by: Ulrike Al-Khamis
Copyedited by: Mandi Gomez


MWNF Working Number: UK3 42