Suzani

Suzani is the dowry embroidery of Central Asia, a large decorative panel of silk stitching worked on a cotton or silk ground in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and neighboring lands. Its surface is built from big rosettes and sun-disc medallions called palak, surrounded by curling vines, leaves, and blossoms in saturated reds, blues, and ochres, filled with chain and couching stitches. The pieces were traditionally made by a bride and her female relatives as part of her dowry and presented to the groom on the wedding day. The Castilian envoy Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo described embroideries at Timur's court that were probably forerunners of the suzani in the early fifteenth century, though most surviving examples date only from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, named for their towns of origin: Bukhara, Nurata, Samarkand, Tashkent, and others.