Tents have always fascinated me since childhood and I remember saying in them as children when Baba went for daura ( inspection). We would climb up using the ropes and slide down the sides. Of course these were simple tents.
In The Prncess Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland I saw a rather fancy, beautifullly decorated and preserved tent from the Ottoman empire, seized during the Battle of Vienna.
It was a marquee tent with 3 embroidered sides and the flap.
The sides with their mihrab designs were of course exquisite but the centre medallion took my breath away.
Thhis was made of woolen cloth.
The mihrab designs are interesting since this tent was obviously not forn praying and anyway one doesn’t have mihrab on three sides.
The tent is an irregular quadrilateral size with triangles sewn on to the sides.
The medallion and the sides are applique on woollen cloth.
The triangles , added at the front and back and along the upper margins of the side walls, are made from woollen cloth by ‘incrustation’: that is sewing coloured cloth, then adding the pattern into the background cloth.
The tent is covered on the exterior with canvas and supported by four wooden poles with brass knobs on top.
The fact that the tent sides are permanently sewn together shows that it’s function was different since it could not be easily folded and moved.
