Research Project by Elena Papastavrou, Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Zakynthos (Zante), and Dafni Filiou

Overview

This project investigates the prolific and refined production of Greek Orthodox embroidery in Ottoman Constantinople, by drawing upon the rich collection of the Byzantine & Christian Museum (Athens). The standardization of its iconographic and technical characteristics has led scholars of post-Byzantine arts to talk of a school of embroidery, the wide popularity of which is evident from remnants in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. While the uniqueness of its eclectic style primarily leans on Byzantine tradition, the generous incorporation of contemporary Ottoman and Western European elements is equally evident. Then, apart from being an interesting case study of Early Modern artistic melding, this production provides valuable information on the social and cultural conditions of the Greek community as well. Signed mostly by Greek female artisans, as the heads of numerous workshops, these artifacts reveal as much for their patron’s taste as for their makers’ agency. Moreover, the particularity of certain iconographic themes, unique to this school, and their relation to inter-faith dogmatic dialogue between the different Christian denominations gives another insight into the prevalent cultural atmosphere of the period. Essentially, the history of this production is multi-faceted yet very centered: from the marketability of a woman’s signature to the refined eclecticism of a well-informed style, all the characteristics of this production brings us in front of a complex cultural setting, in which Greek women embroidered their path to Early Modernity. 

The methodology used in this project is interdisciplinary and synthetic, pertaining to the analysis of iconography, style, and technique, the last usually being decisive. In order to attribute the artifacts to their cultural context, we focus on the method of their construction in combination with the study of different factors determining their cultural environment. The outcome of this project is a monograph.