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a cord quilted coverlet of salmon pink silk, reversing to shell pink silk, the field divided into three registers, the upper panel with portrait roundels and musicians, the centre with a lute player flanked by soldiers on horseback, the lower panel with a Portuguese galleon and dhows at sea, the borders worked with a floral meander and with figures to the lower border

CATALOGUE NOTE

Made for domestic use, the size and quality of this piece would imply a royal or noble commission. The survival of this delicate quilt is indicative of how highly prized the piece would have been.

The human figures, flora and fauna, place the quilt stylistically in the seventeenth century. A similar quilted silk coverlet known as the 'Hunters Quilt' is in the LA County Museum of Art dated circa 1700 (Fox 1990, p.14, no.1). As with the current lot there are representations of figures dressed in European costume wearing doublets, epaulets, pumpkin breeches, and caps.

In each of the four corners are double headed eagles representing Goa. As is the case with lot 155 this quilt would have been commissioned by the Portuguese and exported from Goa to Europe. An example in the Musée des Arts décoratifs (Bordeaux 1998, p. 108. no.38) has similar arcaded figures to the outer border and the double headed eagle in each of the four corners.