Middle East, Textile; Panel, silk-embroidered cotton, design of central octagons, lobed medallions and cartouches on black ground, Azerbaijan or NW Iran, 1700-1800 Plain weave cotton embroidered with silk in surface darning, running and cross stitches. The cross stitch has been worked in two colours around the larger motifs. Two pieces of fabric have been sewn together before being embroidered. A dark brown ground with a central octagon is surrounded by four blue ground elongated hexagons and four red ground lobed medallions. Blue and yellow curved hooks come from the octagons, as do green or white curled leaves. Blue and yellow curved hooks come from the lobed medallions. The octagons contain a green and yellow 'five-fingered' motif, which may simply be a leaf or may be a version of 'the hand of Fatima' motif. The motifs are outlined with a border of brown and white or red, brown and white cross stitch. There are mistakes in the design: the octagon at the centre bottom has two sides parallel instead of converging and the octagon at the top has two sides going out instead of converging. In the lower left hand corner the blue hexagon is vertical instead of horizontal. The border has a yellow ground with a brown leafy meander linking blue and red octagonal motifs. The blue motifs have green 'arms' from diagonal opposite corners and the red ones have blue 'arms'. There are mistakes at the corners of the border: in the red motif in the top right hand corner the arms are not diagonally opposite; the same mistake is in a red motif at the top of the left hand border and in a red one at the bottom of the right hand border and in a blue one at the left hand side of the lower border. This may have something to do with the way the border pattern does not bend around the corners. Colour (Embroidery threads, 2S silk): dark brown, red, white, green, dark blue, blue, yellow [faded].