The textiles of Persia (Iran) have a securely established reputation for excellence in materials, techniques and design, ranging from the luxurious fabrics of Sassanian times (224-641) to the medieval silks exported to church treasuries of Europe where they are recorded and still preserved. Later, during the Safavid period (1501-1722) the silk brocades woven in Isfahan, Yazd, Kashan and Resht were highly prized in both court palaces and wealthy residences for men and women's clothes and accessories, and also for household furnishings such as curtains, bedding, quilts, floor coverings and cushions. Designs of flowers, foliage and figural subjects were worked in complex weaves and embroidery techniques. An extensive and closely supervised silk industry based in the Caspian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran made textiles for the domestic and also export markets in Europe and Ottoman territories. Additional sources such as Safavid single figure album paintings and the dated reports and memoirs of resident European officials and merchants complement what we know of the textiles themselves. Silk weaving revived during the Qajar period (1786-1925) after the disruption and turmoil of the 18th century, continuing the Safavid tradition of brocaded textiles but now decorated with design motifs of repeated small flowers. Supporting evidence of the use of these textiles is seen in the life­size portraits in oils of the Qajar rulers and their courtiers, where details of designs are meticulously painted. Contemporary British and European dated diplomatic, trade reports and personal accounts supplement the visual evidence of textiles and paintings.

Sumptuous as the silk brocades are, they represent a sophisticated urban production linked with Persia's great cities and (apart from the famous carpets) tend to overshadow equally rich textile traditions such as the embroidered silks, wools and printed cottons used mainly for household furnishings and the fine twill woven from silky goat's hair into fabrics for shawls and coats which was a speciality of Kerman. Persia was complex and regional where settled towns and villages contrasted with nomadic tribes which all illustrate a bewildering mosaic of language, social structure and cultural tradition which is reflected in their textile products. The fibres of textiles are perishable through natural wear and tear, vulnerable to processes of erosion and climate change and destruction in times of political instability so that it is difficult to construct a continuous history without provenance and secure dates. Design sources compound the problem as people are in contact across settled and nomadic communities and absorb new designs into their work. The weaving and embroidery of the mountainous northern territories of the Caucasus well illustrate the diversity of Persian textiles. The Safavid domain extended Persian control and influence well beyond the boundaries of contemporary Iran, to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, which were ceded to Russia during the conflicts of the early 19th Century and are now independent states. Here the disputed territory of Karabagh, located within Azerbaijan but historically part of Armenia, and with a population mainly of Armenians, is typical of the linguistic, ethnic, religious and cultural complexity resulting from centuries of turbulence. Visually the impact is seen in a group of embroidered textiles which were only produced for household use - curtains, room dividers, floor coverings of various sizes, cushion covers -where designs are influenced by the bold angular shapes of Caucasian carpets and of figural motifs derived from a shared heritage of famous scenes of Persian myth and romance (see Brian Moorhouse, Stars of the Caucasus, Silk embroideries from Azerbaijan, London, 2017).

While many of these textiles have survived in museum and private collections and feature in auction house sales the two embroideries under review here (lots 49 and 50), which broadly span the late 16th to early 18th centuries, clearly illustrate the main themes and are worked in stitches which cover the entire fabric to imitate the continuous surface texture of carpets (see S. F. A. Caufeild, Encyclopedia of Victorian Needlework, London, 1882 republished by Dover 1972, Vol. 11, pp. 389-391, 'Persian Embroidery'). They are both of a size to define seating areas and to drape over cushions. A foundation of natural linen in a weave is suitable for the double darning stitch worked in coloured cotton for the main blocks of the design and in single rows of black outlines. Alternatives were silk threads and the use of cross and chain stitches. The design of lot 50 is closely related to that of contemporary carpets in both brilliant colour and the stylised formality of motifs, all displayed on a plain black field filled with spiralling floral and foliate tendrils which frame a central medallion in red linked to a quartet of large pointed leaves. The medallion in turn is flanked by a symmetrical arrangement of four octagonal corner motifs alternating with blue triangles. A narrow border of cartouches reserved on a red ground encloses the main field but, however, cutting off the sides of the corner octagons. This possibly suggests that the design was copied from a section of a larger carpet or embroidered cover. Vitality and a sense of movement is given to the design by the inclusion of animal motifs - deer and gazelles galloping within the octagons and triangles. The central medallion contains another example from the figural repertoire of a lion attacking a deer which is a version of the classic animal combat motif which can be traced back to the carved stone reliefs of the Achaemenid palace of Persepolis (6th-4th century B.C.). Further intrusions from the repertoire of figural motifs are seen in comparable embroideries where pairs of stylised and distorted human figures flank a cypress tree, such as a silk-embroidered cotton cover in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, dated to circa 1700 (inv. no. 30.1).

Lot 49 is embroidered with the same double darning stitch in a comparable scheme consisting of a central medallion within alternating cartouches and circular motifs but without a retaining border. The blue field is crowded with tulips, sprays of leaves and highly stylised birds, but the main images are figural and linked to the favourites of Persian romantic poetry such as Nizami and Jami (as in a silk textile of the 16th Century, woven with scenes of Layla visiting Majnun in the wilderness, Khosraw seeing Shirin bathing (both from Nizami), and (from Jami) Yusuf and Zulaykha: British Museum, inv, no 1985.0506.1). In the central medallion an enthroned winged figure probably represents a ruler being served wine by a maidservant, which has parallels with a unique textile worked in applique of a court scene of 16th century date in the Esterhazy collection in Budapest (see Ivan Szanto, Safavid Art and Hungary: the Esterhazy Applique in Context, Piliscsaba 2010, Figs 2.1 and 2.54). Winged figures also feature in other media such as polychrome glazed tilework where a panel of angels dated to 1715 adorns the altar of the Armenian cathedral of All Saviours in Isfahan. The cartouches each feature a rider pursuing a lion which is both a familiar feature of Persian art and a link with an illustrious past as he may be identified with the Sassanian ruler Bahram Gur, renowned in history and legend for his hunting exploits.

Lot 49. A rare Safavid embroidered cotton panel, Caucasus, probably Azerbaijan, 16th-17th Century; 81 x 95 cm. max. Estimate: £40,000 - £60,000. Unsold. Photo: Bonhams.

rectangular, the natural linen ground embroidered in polychrome cotton with a central lobed medallion containing an enthroned winged figure, to his left a maiden holding a bottle surrounded by tendrils with lotuses other flowers and foliate motifs, the medallion surrounded by a band of alternating cartouches and lobed medallions containing mounted hunters spearing their lions and mounted falconers, each surrounded by floral tendrils, the interstices with large lotuses, birds and foliate motifs.

Provenance: Formerly in the Collection of Augustus Pitt Rivers (1827-1900).
Private French Collection.

Lot 44. A Timurid moulded pottery mihrab tile, Central Asia, second half of the 14th Century; 56.2 cm. high excluding stand. Estimate: £40,000 - £60,000. Sold for £51,200. Photo: Bonhams.

in the form of a mihrab, decorated in cobalt-blue and turquoise on a white ground with a central trefoil palmette containing and surrounded by scrolling foliate interlace and split palmettes, mounted.

Note: This is a beautifully crafted terracotta panel that takes the form of a mihrab arch, enclosing an inner trefoil palmette which stands on a short waisted foot. The surface is adorned with an intricate design of scrolling floral and leafy arabesques in various luminous glazes such as rich turquoise, white, lilac and aubergine. The terracotta has been delicately carved in high relief to give the pierced effect of a veil of lace, with the subtle glazes floating against the deeply recessed ground.

Carved and glazed terracotta is a highly attractive technique that dates back to before the Timurid conquest. One of the earliest examples is a fragment in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, dated AH 722/1322 AD. This technique seems only to have been used in the fourteenth century and is distinct from other techniques employed by Timurid tile-makers, such as cut-tile mosaic and cuerda seca.

Similar mihrab-shaped arches can be seen at the Mausoleum of an Anonymous Woman in the Shah-e Zende necropolis complex in Samarkand, illustrated in Jean Soustiel and Yves Porter's book Tombs of Paradise: The Shah-e Zende in Samarkand and architectural ceramics of Central Asia, 2003 p, 87. Another example is found in the Sadberk Hanim Museum, Istanbul, as illustrated in Hülya Bilgi's book Reunited after centuries: Works of art restored to Turkey by the Sadberk Hanim Museum, 2005, pp. 28-29, cat. no. 4.

Lot 5. An illuminated Qur'an, Safavid Persia, Shiraz, second half of the 16th Century; 335 x 240 mm. Estimate: £40,000 - £60,000. Unsold. Photo: Bonhams.

Arabic manuscript on paper, 361 leaves, 12 lines to the page written in large naskhi script in black ink with diacritics and vowel points in black and red, text within cloudbands on a gold ground, verse-endings marked by gold rosettes with blue dots, marginal gold and polychrome circular medallions, nisf, hizb and juz' marginal markers in naskhi script in gold, inner margins ruled in colours and gold, sura headings in white naskhi script on a gold ground within illuminated panels, the opening double page with two large illuminated shamsas (one laid down on a new leaf), the following double page with text in nashki script in white within central cartouches against profuse full-page illumination in colours and gold, illuminated headpiece opening the first two leaves of sura II, al-baqarah with illuminated headpiece and text in clouds on gold ground, sura al-'Umran containing one silver-sprinkled double page, the preceding double page with the text in cloudbands against a ground cross-hatched in gold, a similarly gold cross-hatched leaf after the silver-sprinkled page, the last two leaves with prayers in Arabic and Persian, binding added recently, Safavid, 16th Century, red leather covers with stamped gilt central floral medallions and cornerpieces, the doublures with a central field of fine polychrome cartouches overlaid with a decoupé gold floral interlace, border cartouches similarly worked.

Provenance: Formerly in the collection of the late Dr Mohammed Said Farsi (1935-2019).
Christie's, Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, 1st April 2020, lot 6.