This brightly patterned carpet is the type of soft furnishing we might expect to find in an upper-middling home at the end of the 1500s and the start of the 1600s. In this period, carpets were used to cover tables and cupboards rather than floors (which were spread with rushes). This carpet is from Turkey and features a popular ‘lotto’ design. <a href='https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O11051/carpet-unknown/' target='_blank'>V&A</a> research suggests that such objects were woven in commercial workshops in Western Turkey and then exported to central and western Europe in the 1500s and 1600s. The two main trade routes into Europe were along the rivers Rhine and Danube, or across the Mediterranean Sea. These were ancient trade routes, and it was not unusual for Turkish goods to find their way to English shores in the 1500s. <br /> <br /> Turkish textiles were used to make a variety of soft furnishings, from carpets to cushions and other chair coverings. Often recorded as ‘turkey’ or ‘turkey work’, wills and inventories show that these textiles reached middling as well as elite homes. Around 25% of provincial urban inventories listed a carpet, for example, suggesting that they were key items of aspirational middling status, owned by those who wanted to signal their social mobility: owning a carpet like this one not only showed your wealth and taste, but also your knowledge of other cultures. In Bristol, for example, John Butcher died in possession of a turkey carpet valued at £25 in 1623.
Turkey carpet (Carpet), 1550-1600

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Turkey carpet

Turkey carpet (Carpet), 1550-1600

This brightly patterned carpet is the type of soft furnishing we might expect to find in an upper-middling home at the end of the 1500s and the start of the 1600s. In this period, carpets were used to cover tables and cupboards rather than floors (which were spread with rushes). This carpet is from Turkey and features a popular ‘lotto’ design. V&A research suggests that such objects were woven in commercial workshops in Western Turkey and then exported to central and western Europe in the 1500s and 1600s. The two main trade routes into Europe were along the rivers Rhine and Danube, or across the Mediterranean Sea. These were ancient trade routes, and it was not unusual for Turkish goods to find their way to English shores in the 1500s.

Turkish textiles were used to make a variety of soft furnishings, from carpets to cushions and other chair coverings. Often recorded as ‘turkey’ or ‘turkey work’, wills and inventories show that these textiles reached middling as well as elite homes. Around 25% of provincial urban inventories listed a carpet, for example, suggesting that they were key items of aspirational middling status, owned by those who wanted to signal their social mobility: owning a carpet like this one not only showed your wealth and taste, but also your knowledge of other cultures. In Bristol, for example, John Butcher died in possession of a turkey carpet valued at £25 in 1623.

This object appears in our memory parlour and web tour. Can you find it?

Object Type Carpet
Year 1550-1600
Material Textile, wool
Owned By V&A 903-1897
Keywords producing; displaying; acquiring; owning; assets; craftsmanship; networks; importing; trade and exchange; mobility; visual culture; comfort; domestic; textiles; furnishings
Image Credit Carpet (1550-1600); textile, wool. V&A 903-1897, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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