Description

Highly decorative silk ikat panel made in Margilan in the Ferghana Valley, Uzbekistan, in the late 19th century.

Ikat weaving is an extremely complicated process which involves tie-dyeing the silk warps before the weaving takes place.  The material thus produced was usually made into robes which only the wealthiest could afford and which always denoted a high social standing.

In this full-width panel the warps as well as the wefts are made of silk, which gives the panels an iridescence that textiles woven with a cotton weft don’t normally possess in the same way.

The ikat panel is  mounted and in  excellent condition.

A very similar textile in terms of design and colour scheme and from the same area, but made into a composite panel, is in the Murad Megalli Collection in the Textile Museum, Washington, published in the catalogue accompanying the museum’s exhibition from October 16, 2010 to March 13, 2011, and  edited by Sumru Belger Krody: Colors of the Oasis. Central Asian Ikats. It is catalogue  number 54, illustrated on page 247

£950