Collection record · Dress & textiles
Fragment
The collection record classifies this work as textile. It is dated before 1975. Recorded culture or place: Iran or Iraq, in the style of the Buyid period (945–1055) or Seljuq period (1037–1194).
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A closer look at the details.
- Museum title
- Fragment
- Date
- before 1975
- Culture / origin
- Iran or Iraq, in the style of the Buyid period (945–1055) or Seljuq period (1037–1194)
- Materials and technique
- Silk: lampas weave
- Dimensions
- Overall: 38.5 x 67 cm (15 3/16 x 26 3/8 in.)
- Artist / maker
- Not specified by the museum
- Museum
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession number
- 1975.38
FROM THE MUSEUM
In the museum’s words
The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.
This silk was originally reported to be one of several fragments from garments, shroud, and tomb covers unearthed during the early 1900s at Bibi Shahr Banu outside the ancient city of Rayy, a few miles from Tehran. The fragment preserves a beginning (or finishing) edge at the bottom and a small portion of selvage along the left edge.
The exceptionally beautiful design of this silk is filled with ornament. Even the spaces between the roundels containing birds and palmette trees and the octagons with inscriptions enclosing floral devices are ornamented with an intricate geometric pattern. Islamic art is, above all, decorative in accordance with Muhammed's dislike of representing living forms. In Iran, floral and animal motifs never ceased to be represented even after the Islamic invasion, but they were depicted in a highly ornamental fashion as seen here.
FOLLOW THE SOURCE
Text and image sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of The Textile Arts Club and Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund · CC0
The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.
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