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."

ca. 1855 1855, Bhāgalpur

ca. 1855 1855, Bhāgalpur

Description