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Textiles in Cambridge: Mediterranean Embroidery at Fitzwilliam Museum
As part two of our Textiles in Cambridge series, we guide you through the Fitzwilliam Museum's current exhibition exploring Mediterranean embroidery.
July 22, 2023
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
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With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
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The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Two parrots, perched together on a textile or a tile, are an important symbol of love shared between two entities. On linen, they speak the romance of a man and a woman. On the walls of a mosque, the relationship between the human and the divine.
With these multimedia motifs, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Mediterranean Embroideries presents a promising start. Such embroideries and traditional dresses have long been sought after by European art collectors. By the early 20th century, the most valued ‘specimens’ made their way into museum collections, evidence of how modern (and false) the binary between art and craft really is.
Yet, the Fitzwilliam follows a traditional pattern of display, in this Chiba Gallery show, supported by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. From napkins (yaglik) used only for the most formal of meals, to panels propped up in bed tents, there’s plenty to get wrapped up in.
The room radiates with red, the colour that the Greek islands are woven across with, and most of the Mediterranean world. The darker-coloured tapestries tell different stories. A detailed cover from Morocco - remarkably, used to protect other textiles - bears flowerpots stitched in an almost-black indigo, a monochromatic design connecting the Aegean islands and North Africa.
It’s stained and worn, a really living work of art. But it’s trapped behind glass; detached and disconnected from both its history, and its contemporary viewers.
Nearby, a sampler from Rabat can be read like an artist’s palette, or the experiments of a young artisan. Across twelve panels, each featuring different stitches and patterns, we can follow her as she approaches the end of her apprenticeship with her ‘female teacher’ (ma’allema), in a professional embroidery workshop.
Indeed, women weave - and are woven into - these histories. On one textile, we find a xouna (witch) animating anthropomorphic plants, whilst a rooster, a signature of the island of Skyros, stands guard. It is designed to protect its wearers from evil spirits. Spirituality lingers in the practice. On Crete, a similarly ornate skirt border is repurposed for use as a ceremonial church vestment.
Most interesting is how Mediterranean Embroideries uses textiles to engage with histories of empire. The lasting influence of four hundred years of Ottoman rule lingers in the cultural forms of Epirus, a region now spanning Greece and Albania. Here we find a comical Ottoman official stitched on silk, on a cushion cover made for a wedding celebration. The same vivid reds and blues crop up in a more frugal fashion, in another cushion cover made from the reworked fragments of a bedspread.
As well as showing how patterns persist after the end of political rule, the display hints at how cultures resist, or adapt. The crowned mermaid - a motif originally from Venice - still featured in Cretan embroidery long after the Ottomans assumed control in 1669. Another skirt border from Crete adds to it more Ottoman-style flowers, a visual source and testament to the island’s important location, at the crossroads of Mediterranean trade.
Only one photograph ever puts these fabrics back into context. Many more can be found at Kettle’s Yard’s mighty new exhibition, Material Power, a short walk down the road.
Here, we see a woman from Ramallah, wearing a veil (khirqah), adorned with red motifs outlined in black thread. It is a tradition typical of the types of veils in the Palestinian West Bank. Her aspect, frozen in time, reflects this static display - which silences these fabrics from sharing the histories they’re so desperate to tell.
Mediterranean Embroideries is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum until 22 October 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
