Articles

Velvet fragments from the vault in Khanli-dere (Bakhchisaray)

Vostok/Oriens '2016, №5

 
There are several velvet fragments in Hermitage Museum collection derived from Bakhchisaray mausoleum (burial vault) at Khanli-Dere stow. Large repeat of the textile ornament in velvet consisting of “ogival figures grid” with brocaded rosettes in the center first brought associations to Turkish velvets dating from about the sixteenth century. But smaller details such as 7-part medallions with brocaded rosettes in its centers bordered with leaves and tiny floral sprouts are peculiar to Italian textiles of the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries. Ornament and technical analysis of this velvet shows that it was likely produced in the Ottoman Turkey and can be dated from the second half of the fifteenth – early sixteenth centuries. Khanli-Dere vault is very likely simultaneous to the Türbe (mausoleum) of Haci I Giray (second half of the fifteenth – middle of the sixteenth centuries) situated not far away. The Türbe preserved an outstanding collection of silk textiles of the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries used as covers of coffins and as grave clothes. It is hardly possible to attribute Khanli-dere vault, but it possibly belonged to some noble house partly because of use of silk velvet brocaded with gold thread.

Keywords: Bakhchisaray, mausoleum, turbe, velvet, silk, Crimea, Turkey, Italy, Khanli-Dere stow

Pages: С. 137–152