Click here to buy tickets for this exhibition, or telephone +44 (0)870 8488484.
Click here to buy the Turks catalogue from the Royal Academy’s main website.
This short-sleeved collarless kaftan is buttoned down the front to the waist and lined in red satin. The fabric is a type of silk brocade known as kemka, woven in black and gilt thread. The design consists of a network of medallions formed by rumj motifs in yellow on a black ground, the medallions containing triple-spot motifs. Rows of yellow leaves on the branches of the rumj motifs resemble flames. The triple-spot motif appears on all types of object produced at the Ottoman palace studio from the early fifteenth century onwards, including carpets, tiles, illumination, ceramics and woodwork. When used together with a pair of flickering stripes it is known as the ‘tiger-stripe and leopard-spot motif’, or as çintamanj, which became a typical feature of Ottoman Turkish decorative art.
Zeren Tanindi
• Click here to buy tickets for this exhibition, or telephone +44 (0)870 8488484.
• Click here to buy the Turks catalogue from the Royal Academy’s main website.
