Embroidered Quilt Facing (Yorgan Yüzü)
Artist/maker unknown, Turkish
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During the Ottoman Empire, embroidered textiles were made by men in professional workshops and by women in the women's quarters of houses. A quilt facing (yorgan yüzü), part of the bedding in a well-to-do Ottoman household, would have been tacked to the top of a quilt so it could be easily removed. This example is constructed from three joined loom-widths of fabric that were embroidered before being assembled. The pattern of a pomegranate flanked by two large serrated leaves is worked in a darning stitch over three threads. The composition's central field and border typifies Ottoman embroideries from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.