Knitted silk purse, stocking stitch, with metal thread loops.
Displayed behind glass.
Acquired in Julfa, the Armenian suburb of Isphahan.
Red, purple, green, black, white, yellow and mauve silk.  A long, narrow purse with a rounded bottom, open at the top.  There seems to be 2 gold coloured metal thread loops, one at either side of the opening.  Seemingly independent of these is a silk cord which has been passed through small thread loops and which could be pulled tight to close the purse.  The cord ends with a 'pendant' of interlaced gold coloured metal thread.
The purse is decorated with a series of barrow bands along the upper part: purple, reciprocal yellow and black trefoils, an indistinct green pattern on a purple ground, the trefoils again and then a series of vertical stripes on a white ground.  There is a narrow and two wider stripes visible: the narrow contains a meander and the wider contain 2 stylized plants with a pair of birds perched on their top.  The colours are used in bands: purple, green, red, mauve, purple etc.. Towards the rounded bottom there is a repeat of the trefoil band either side of a purple band with joining X- and S-motifs in white.
There seem to be narrow bands going down to the bottom in which a band with a star motif is in between bands of red, green and purple.

Page of the illustrated manuscript "The  Illustrated Regulations for Ceremonial   Paraphernalia of the Present Dynasty."

1800 / 1850, Japan

Description