Velvet

Categorized as Terms

Velvet

Amanda Phillips

Related Terms:

  • Ikat (dyeing technique that employs binding and resists dyeing)
  • Loom (apparatus for making fabric by weaving)
  • Silk (natural fiber made from silkworm cocoons)
  • Suzani (embroidered textiles from Central Asia)
  • Tiraz (medieval embroidered textiles, also refers to the factories in which they were made)

Related Khamseen Videos:

Sam Bowker, “The Egyptian Tentmakers and the Art of Khayamiya,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 28 August 2020.

Sumru Belger Krody, “Prayer Carpets,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 11 May 2021.

Richard McGregor, “Hajj Materials and Rites from Egypt,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 9 February 2021.

Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, “Craft and Aesthetics in Byzantine and Early Islamic Textiles,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 19 October 2020.

References:

Atasoy, Nurhan, Walter Denny, Louise Mackie and Hülya Tezcan. İPEK, the Crescent & the Rose: Imperial Ottoman Silks and Velvets. Istanbul and London: Azimuth and TEB İletişim, 2001.

Bier, Carol. The Persian Velvets at Rosenborg. Copenhagen: De Danske Kongers Kronologiske Samling, 1995.

Mackie, Louise. Symbols of Power: Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th–21st centuries. New Haven and London: HALI and Yale University Press, 2015.

Jain, Rahul. Woven Textiles-Technical Studies Monographs no. 2: Mughal Velvets. Ahmedabad: Calico Museum and Sarabhai Museum, 2011.

Peter, Michael. “A Head Start Through Technology: Early Oriental Velvets and the West.” In Oriental Silks in Medieval Europe. Edited by J. von Fircks and R. Schorta, 300–315. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2016.

Phillips, Amanda. “A Material Culture: Ottoman Velvets and their Owners, 1500–1650.” Muqarnas 31 (2014): 151–72.

Citation:

Amanda Phillips, “Velvet,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 17 May 2023.

Amanda Phillips received her DPhil at Oxford and now teaches Islamic art and material culture at the University of Virginia. She focuses mostly on craft traditions in the Ottoman Empire, and especially textiles and other things made outside the palace. Art and objects are the main topic of her first book Everyday Luxuries (2016). Her second book, Sea Change (2021), argues that textiles twined through every facet of life in the Ottoman Empire, and their study reveals not only the preoccupations and habits of elite and humble subjects alike, but also frameworks of piety, economic thought, collective taste-making, and sensory experience not found in written sources.