This polylobed velvet panel is from the interior of a tent used by Kara Mustapha Pasha, an Ottoman military leader, during the siege of Vienna (1683); the tent is said to have been captured by the Austrians as war booty. Produced in a royal workshop in Iran, it may have been acquired by the Turkish as a gift or through trade. The Safavid court favored figurative velvets that depicted hunting, a recreational passion of Persian royalty. Here, this theme is delicately drawn and the velvet owes its supple quality to the density and complexity of the weave structure.
