London Boasts Major Exhibition of Exquisite and Rare Islamic Courtly Textiles

In the past, Islamic courtly and trade textiles always played a highly important role in the social and economic life of the Muslim world. However, there has not been an exhibition on this subject in London for many decades in spite of the fact that textiles form a central and indispensable part of any museum or private collection of Islamic art.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly the rarity of the material and secondly, textiles today are a commodity that is mass produced and readily available. They bear no relation to what was woven for the Islamic courts, before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Then, sumptuous court dress and furnishings were a means for rulers to display and enjoy their status and wealth. They were of a splendour and beauty that we can barely imagine today.

India has been famous for its painted cottons and embroideries since Roman times. The designs of textiles made for the exclusive use of the Muslim rulers of India, both for the Mughal emperors and for the Deccani sultans, were more voluptuous and less disciplined than their Safavid and Ottoman counterparts but they too were of stupendous quality.

Today our knowledge of Islamic Indian textiles relies primarily on historical trade accounts kept by Europeans who maintained trading outposts in India.

However, recent discoveries have identified an important and long standing trade of differently designed Indian cottons for a South-East Asian market, some of which pre-date Indian painting on paper.

The Sumatran wall hanging is an exquisite example of these Indian textiles which were tailor-made for export to a royal South-East Asian Muslim market.

Its purple border is embellished with the words: "There is no God but Allah And Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah" repeated over and over again.

The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal courts of the 16th and 17th century rivalled, and at times eclipsed, many of the Renaissance courts of the time. Textiles, both for furnishings and costume, were an extremely important part of ceremonial and court life. Theirs was a strictly regulated industry where silks, velvets and embroideries of superlative quality and design were produced in royal ateliers, often housed within the palace grounds.

The best were for the sole use of the ruler and his court, but they were also an important means of trade and diplomacy.

For example, no other nationality produced figurative velvets to compete with the Safavid weavers under the control of Shah Abbas I (1587-1629). Robes of honour made of this fabric were given as diplomatic gifts to the Russian, Ottoman and Mughal courts.

The range of Ottoman silks and velvets stored in the Topkapi Palace Museum are all of magnificent quality, their bold and inventive designs exuding both pleasure and power.

North African Courtly textiles were no less sumptuous, like the Algerian noblewoman's headscarf, a detail of which is pictured to the right.

 Dating from the 18th-19th century, the whole textile is 309 cm long and 36.5 cm wide. It is made of linen and embroidered with twisted silk threads, thin gold lamella twisted around golden yellow silk core, and flat strips of gold lamella. One side is edged with narrow passamenterie.

The headscarf was folded in half and then a small central section of one side was sewn up to make a kind of hood with the seam at the back and two long tails.

Although there have been a number of intelligent and exciting exhibitions and in-depth studies of specific areas of Islamic textile production a major museum exhibition on the subject as a whole is now long overdue.

The exhibit runs form 4 April to 6 May at Francesca Galloway, London.