Amanda Phillips (DPhil, Oxon) is Associate Professor of Art History, specialising in the art and material culture of the Islamic World. She researches and writes on the Ottoman Empire and its craft traditions, as well on the histories of consumption and technology. She recently spent a year in Turkey as a Fulbright Senior Researcher, working on a new project in Istanbul. In the University of Virginia's Department of Art, Amanda teaches at both graduate and undergraduate levels -- her survey, Arts of the Islamic World is offered in the spring on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She also co-teaches a class on the medieval Mediterranean, usually offered in the autumn. During AY 2026-27, Amanda spending her sabbatical as a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.
Featured Object. Some scholars see tiger stripes and leopard spots, some see flames and pearls, and some see the Buddha's lips, apparently. While a connection to central Asian and Himalayan art and belief has been seen in similarities between these stripes-and-dots and those in Buddhist art, there is no evidence for a direct relationship, no evidence that the term used in Sanskrit--chintamani--was known in the Ottoman Empire, and no evidence that the weavers and owners of this textile saw them as Buddhist. Instead, the tiger stripe and leopard spots may be linked to kings and sultans and to apex predators, to animal skins and heroes from the ancient past. The motifs might have been seen as protective or lucky, or perhaps just visually appealing. The motifs are contained in an ogival framework, typical of Ottoman textiles and of velvets in particular.
This piece of velvet was woven from silk, cotton, and metal-thread, and is the product of a professional workshop in which tasks were undertaken by different specialists. Designers, weavers, spinners, dyers, and even metal-workers all played their roles. The finished textile would have been expensive, not least because of its costly materials. It was probably meant to be used as furnishing fabric. This kind of velvet, though costly, wore well because it was relatively study and stiff. The city of Bursa, in western Anatolia, was famous for making this type of velvet, often in crimson and gold, and often used for upholstery.
Silk, cotton, and metal folil-wrapped silk thread, voided-and-brocaded velvet, Ottoman Empire, maybe Bursa, ca 1600s or so. Paris, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, inv. no. 7067.