Texts related to Embroidery in the Early Ottoman Empire

 
ABOVE: Two examples of 16th Century Ottoman embroidery, from the Victoria and Albert Musuem (London). These two images come from their on line catalog of images--I highly recommend that people visit their site and take a look at what they have posted!

 

from The Plague at Rhodes     from Nicolas Nicolay     from The Order of the Great Turk's Court

From the Greek poem The Plague at Rhodes, by Emmanuel Georgillas (1485), as quoted by Roderick Taylor in Embroidery of the Greek Islands and Epirus Brooklyn, NY: Interlink Books, 1998, printed on endpapers.

And who knows how to tell us of all their arts
and of the beautiful things their little hands made,
Patterned and broad leaf work, sewn with skill and craft
on fine linen, all types of designs set in order,
Which they enriched with silver and gold,
with all the arts of the Muses like good painters.
Bed tents, cushions, curtains and kerchiefs,
worked with quinces, roses, vine tendrils and grapes,
Flowers, pomegranates and myrtle, flowers of every kind.
They embroidered them with feeling, with happiness and song.
I tell you, if any one had been there to look carefully
at the handicraft they worked on, they would have praised it.

from Nicholas Nicolay, The Navigations, Perigrinations and Voyages Made into Turkey. Translated by T. Washington. London: Tomas Dawson, 1585, p.128r

Within the city of Constantinople, near unto the seven towers, there is a great street for the most part inhabited by the Caramanians (by the ancients called Cilicians [1]), living as other strange nations do under the tribute of the great Turk and exercising merchandise or handicrafts, wherein they are very ingenious and cunning, [e]specially in goldsmiths work and embroidery. The goldsmiths keep their shops near to the Bedestan,[2] which is, as I have said before, a hall where all sorts of costly merchandise is sold, [such] as [items] of gold, of silver, of stones, furs, cloth of gold and of silver, and silk; [also] slaves, camels and horses unto [the highest bidder]. Among [the craftsmen] Caramanians are the most excellent and richest workers. The Caramanian women, principally those of quality,[3] do but seldom go abroad [in the way] the other [Greek women] do, except [to go] to the baths or to the church[. Instead they] keep themselves ordinarily enclosed within their houses, employing their time in making of diverse fair needleworks upon cloth, which they put to be sold at the Bedestan or [at] other common markets. But the other women of less estate,[4] [in order to earn] their living and for relief of their necessity, go openly within the city [selling] eggs, chickens, cheeses, and herbs, and go appareled as ye see in the figure following.[5] But the richer sort go more bravely and costly appareled, for they wear their Doliman [6] either of velvet, satin, or damask, and on their head a long mitre figured with flowers of diverse colors,[7] covered with a great cloak hanging down behind to the ground. The men are appareled after the fashion of the other [Greeks], [and] observ[e] the same faith and religion, and [are] obe[edient] unto the Patriarch of Constantinople.

[1] Cilicia is an area in Anatolia previously dominated by the Byzantine empire. The Christians from this area could be considered "Greeks" as they spoke the Greek language and belonged to the Greek Orthodox church.

[2] The Great Bazaar, largest of the post-conquest markets established in Istanbul, located near the Hagia Sophia and still standing today.

[3] Meaning the women of higher status/upper class families. Other upper class Greek women in the city apparently led less secluded lives.

[4] Lower class

[5] Nicolay included many engravings in his work illustrating the costumes of the different peoples he encountered on his trip. He was a trained artist, and made the original engravings himself.

[6] Coat

[7] Nicolay's illustration of the working class Caramathian woman shows her wearing a tall, conical shaped hat silimar to those worn by Anatolian Turks as seen in other illustrations of the period. We should interpret his description to indicate that upperclass Caramathian women wore similarly shaped hats embroidered with flowers.

from Antoine Geuffroy, The order of the greate Turckes courte, of hys menne of warre, and of all hys conquestes, with the summe of Mahumetes doctryne. Translated out of Frenche. 1524 [sic]. [London]: Ricardus Grafton excudebat, 1542.

[Page 79]They lie upon great quilts made of fine wool, covered with velvet and other cloth of silk according to their ability, [and] they use no feathers. Their sheets are of course linen cloth, wrought over with silk of needle work, [so] that ye cannot see the linen. Which is a goodly thing to look upon, [page 80] for they are all of crimson color, at the least I have seen no other...[1]

[1] While crimson is indeed one of the dominant colors of mid 16th C Ottoman embroidery, other colors are well represented in surviving pieces.