Page 173 - ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND INDIAN WORLDS Carpets, Ceramics Objects, Christie's London Oct..27, 2022

TEXTILES FROM THE COLLECTION OF

NEVILLE KINGSTON (1955-2019)

Neville Kingston (1955-2019) is best known for his collections of
Central Asian carpets and textiles but like most collectors, his
interests were far ranging. His fascination with shapes and motifs
as well as the technique of embroidery led to him collecting textiles
from Eastern Europe to China and Japan. In this picture, he is seen
admiring an embroidery in Northern Vietnam in September 2011.
Born in Dublin and a veterinarian by trade, Kingston travelled
extensively always seeking out unusual textiles and carpets and
taking the opportunity to attend and view auctions and sales
wherever he went. In the introduction to his book, Turkmen
Carpets. The Neville Kingston Collection, London 2016, Kingston
wrote that collecting carpets and textiles ‘bought a rich delight
of patterns, colours and textures to my eyes and to my touch. I
have enjoyed owning the pieces, researching them and constantly
discovering new depths to them’. This collection is illustrative of
another small area of his passion, that for Ottoman embroideries.

149
AN EMBROIDERED PANEL (BOÇHA)
OTTOMAN TURKEY, LATE 17TH / EARLY 18TH CENTURY
The plainwoven linen ground embroidered in blue and red silks with animated diagonal
bands of red tulips and blue artichoke palmettes, the interstices with small pomegranates
and leaves, in a narrow border of blue palmettes, backed with cotton
83q x 37ºin. (212 x 120cm.)
£20,000-30,000 US$23,000-34,000
€23,000-34,000

Embroidery may have first caught on in the Ottoman Empire as a less labour-intensive
alternative to weaving. Nonetheless, by the sixteenth century it had become a courtly art,
with 36 cloth makers and embroiderers recorded in the Topkapi palace workshops in 1525
(various authors, Embroidered Flowers from Thrace to Tartary, David Black Oriental Carpets,
London, 1981, p. 10).
These craftspeople were variously tasked with making shirts, kerchiefs, and even
underpants, as well as wall hangings like this. At the court workshop, embroiderers adopted
motifs common from other areas of material culture: thus the bold alternating red tulip and
blue artichoke flowerheads in the field of this textile are also seen on Iznik pottery. A smaller
but otherwise near-identical embroidery, the field with bold alternating red tulips and blue
artichoke heads in a toothed border, was sold in Christie’s South Kensington, 11 April 2008,
lot 560.

170 In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium (plus VAT) is payable. Other taxes and/or an Artist Resale Royalty 171
fee are also payable if the lot has a tax or λ symbol. Check Section D of the Conditions of Sale at the back of this catalogue.