Middle East, Textile; Panel, silk-embroidered cotton, cut down from larger textile, design of lobed medallions and cartouches on black ground, Azerbaijan or NW Iran, 1670-1700 Plain weave cotton embroidered with silk in cross stitch. The design has been dyed onto the ground using a resist and indigo, with a facing of bias-cut plain weave silk, a backing of plain weave glazed cotton and traces of bronze coloured felt which could be the remains of an original woollen backing or the remains of an interlining which has become felted. The ground fabric has been pieced, cut and rejoined so that the design is disrupted. The ground is black and the pattern originally consisted of a red quatrefoil device in the centre outlined in white, with blue and red. Around this are rectangular red blocks and large yellow and red lozenges symmetrically arranged. These forms are filled with stylized floral and geometric motifs. There is one red palmette along each end, and a border in which a swastika within an octagon alternates with pointed cartouches. Colour (Embroidery threads, 2S silk): black, white, yellow, yellow [faded to beige], blue varying in shade from mid- to light, green, red; (Facing): dark blue silk; (Backing): green glazed cotton.