A major handwoven wool tapestry of village market day, and the most ambitious weaving of its kind we have handled. More than 130 figures fill the panel — women in pink, violet and saffron carrying cabbages and trays on their heads, men in white skullcaps and turbans, children on their mothers' hips, faces turned in every direction and each one drawn individually, with its own eyes, moustache, headscarf and expression. Nobody in this crowd is repeated.
Around and behind them the whole village is set out: mud-brick and whitewashed houses climbing the hill at the top left, a mosque with its minaret rising out of a palm grove, a blossoming pink tree, date palms, and a river with reeds and green crops along its bank on the right side. The scene runs right to the edges of the weaving.
What is in the scene
- More than 130 figures — men, women, children and babies in arms
- A flock of geese and ducks across the lower right
- Rabbits at the foot of the panel, white, grey and black
- Sheep and goats among the men at the right, and a white goat led through the crowd
- Cattle and water buffalo, black and brown
- Donkeys, including a white donkey standing among the crowd
- Camels and horses with riders in the upper right
- Poultry in baskets and a covered cage, and lambs carried in the arms
- A mosque with minaret and domes, and village houses on the hill
Nothing here is stencilled or repeated — every figure and animal is drawn separately.
Handwoven in dyed wool on a cotton warp, worked freehand without a cartoon. A composition of this density is built up figure by figure directly on the loom, over many months of work. The drawing is what sets this piece apart: figurative Egyptian tapestry of this ambition is uncommon and rarely comes to market at this scale.
SIZE
90 x 66 in (228 x 168 cm)
- Materials: handspun wool on cotton warp
- Origin: Egypt — handwoven, one of a kind
Condition: New, in very good condition. Colours are strong and even throughout, weave is sound, no repairs. Please see all photographs, which are of the actual piece you will receive.
