Detail of a cutwork curtain from Afghanistan, collected by Oskar von Niedermayer, 1915-1916.
© Foto: Ethnologisches Museum der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Acc. no. I B 9445.
The Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin houses some cutwork curtains from Afghanistan, which were collected by Oskar von Niedermayer (1885-1948) when he was sent to Afghanistan by the German government to set up the Afghans against the British in India, during the First World War (1914-1918). The mission failed, and the German mission was forced to leave the country.
After active service in the German army during WW II, Von Niedermayer died in a Russian prison hospital in 1948. The curtain illustrated here was made of cotton and measures 161 x 106 cm. The edges around the cutwork holes are neatened with multi-coloured embroidery. It was made and worked in the same way as another curtain, also collected by Von Niedermayer.
See also the TRC digital exhibition Dressing The Stans: Textiles, Dress and Jewellery from Central Asia (TRC, Leiden, 2017).
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin online catalogue (retrieved 3rd December 2016).
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