Luxury, beauty, refinement, sensuality, elegance - silk is synonymous with all of these. No fibre - natural or manmade rivals its versatility. Silk is light but strong, smooth and soft, supremely adaptable. It can be made wonderfully warm or deliciously cool. It can be dyed with infinite subtlety or[...]
Liotard's fine portraits of Westerners in Turkish dress, Carpaccio's turbanned figures and the coveted 'Turkey' carpets that appear in paintings by Lotto and Holbein bear witness to a deep Western fascination with all things Ottoman. It is this cultural influence, spanning five hundred years - from [...]