Door curtain with flowered bulb decor

This door curtain is comprised of three linen muslin panels embroidered in polychrome silk with a series of foliated scrolls. The vegetal stems form either the closed outline of large red bulbs wreathed in fleurons, or open lyre-shaped frames in shades of royal blue. Graceful secondary motifs (white florets, small purple and beige leaves, yellow buds) appear in the intervals. Their pastel tones contrast with the deep red and blue of the main foliated scrolls. The panels were assembled with narrow green, yellow and blue silk ribbons and a wider ribbon with a pink ground covered with brocaded plant motifs.

A number of highly diverse influences contributed to the composition of the decoration. There is no doubt that the predominant red and blue colour is a borrowing from Ottoman Turkey (see the eighteenth-century standard of the Ocak Janissary corps), which itself took up one of the palettes widely used in central Asian needlework to produce embroidered Suzanis. These Asian influences were mingled with Western contributions. The model of large bulbs ending in flowers and stems shaped like lyres should probably be sought in the cut and brocaded velvets produced in Italy and Spain during the sixteenth century, which developed this type of motif. This clever decoration was very skilfully rendered in embroidery by the women of Algiers, who until the mid-nineteenth century perpetuated an ornamental vocabulary that had its origin in Ottoman Turkey at its apogee and in Renaissance Europe; the embroiderers can be credited with synthesising the two traditions. The main characteristic of this embroidery is the double face, which is also an Asian, perhaps Chinese, particularity.

In Spain the influence of Islamic art on embroidery was noteworthy. In North Africa these creations were known as Hispano-Moresque embroideries.

Certain stitches and techniques used in this door curtain from Algiers are similar to those used on other continents; starting in the sixteenth century the booklet of floral motifs – some of which were inspired by the East – was published in France. From the eighteenth century on, books on embroidery patterns were printed, facilitating the spread of the art.

The usage of these embroidery panels – to conceal and partition off certain parts of the house without blocking the air and light – is typical of Algiers. Many door curtains produced using this technique adorned the entrances to bedrooms in the wealthy homes and palaces of Algiers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the fashion of door curtains in Algiers, the art of embroidery became the prerogative of home furnishings in Central and Eastern Europe and was used to decorate household linens such as curtains and hangings; floral motifs were very common and designs inspired by nature extremely popular.