Textile with Birds and Horned Quadrupeds Flanking a Tree of Life

Two Textile Fragments: MMA 52.20.10a, b and Cleveland Museum of Art 41.292

These two fragmentary silks can be best understood in the context of the group of eleven widely dispersed textiles (some known in several fragments) to which they belong.[1] Weft-patterned silks, they are paper-thin and always calendered. They are structurally similar, varying only in the distance of pattern-weft float, the floating length of pattern weft, and the number of warps between pattern-binding ground warps.[2]

In design the eleven textiles fall into two groups. One features repeat patterns of relatively large elements organized into rows of roundels or star-shaped compartments with pairs of animals or birds confronting a tree, a traditional Near Eastern composition. Reserve areas are filled with small-scale repeated geometric devices. The Metropolitan and Cleveland fragments are among the six textiles of this class, three of which bear Kufic inscriptions. Tje second group has narrow stripes of small-scale elements, either geometric patterns, Kufic inscriptions, or figural representations (vertical rows of falcons, lions, and pairs of birds with vegetal motifs interspersed).

The silks with repeat patterns are bichrome (all yellow on dark blue); the striped pieces have several colors, though each stripe is itself bichrome. The animals that adorn the silks are heavily stylized, displaying awkward draftmanship—owing at least in part to structural limitations—and unusual features.

The silks have been variously attributed to Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt.[3] What we know about provenance does not clarify the issue: one fragment is said to have been found in Egypt,[4] and two others have been linked to the so-called Bibi Shahr Banu finds near Rayy, Iran, in 1925.[5] The presence of Kufic inscriptions (none, unfortunately, containing any useful factual information) in more than half the extant pieces plus the similarities in design to Seljuk material argue for an Islamic origin, but one is inclined to follow Donald King in refraining from a precise attribution.[6] The incorporation of a cross in the pattern of the Cleveland fragment suggests that some of the material was intended for a Christian market. That the two groups reflect vastly dissimilar tastes may further indicate that different destinations or different clients were intended.

It would seem appropriate to date the group to the eleventh or twelfth century. The Munich fragments in the group originally were preserved in a cross dating to the middle of the eleventh century and were accompanied by a label written about a century later.{7] Such a dating places these silks before the advent of the Near East of the lampas structure, the next technological step in the weaving of patterned silks.

Michel David-Weill in [Evans and Wixom 1997]

Footnotes:

1. In addition to the Metropolitan and Cleveland fragments nine other textiles may be cited: (1) Cleveland Museum of Art, 86.90, published in Leonie von Wilckens. Die textile Kunste von der Spätantike bis um 1500. Munich,1991, p. 64, ill. 62 (2) A: Washington, DC, Textile Museum, 31.3. published in Sigrid Müller-Christensen "Reliqueenhallen in Kreuz der Konigin Gisela". Auszeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseum, 1976, p. 20, fig. 10; B: other fragments in Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, 3168 and 4247, published in Karel Otavsky and Muhammad Abbas Muhammad Salim. Mittelalterliche Textilien. Vol. I. Agypten; Persien und Mesopotamien; Spanien und Nordafrika. Die Textilsammlung der Abegg-Stiftung, I. Riggisberg, 1995, no. 72 (3) Washington, DC, Textile Museum, 3.117 (4) Lyons, Musée des Tissues, published in Müller-Christensen 1976, pp. 17–19, nos. 7, 8 (5) Washington, D.C., Textile Museum, 31.9 (6) A: Paris, Musée de Cluny, 22.046; B other fragments in Copenhagen, David Collection 24/ 1992, published in Kjeld von Folsach and Anne-Marie Keblow Bernsted. Woven Treasures: Textiles from the World of Islam. Copenhagen, 1993, no. 9; C: other fragments in Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, 4406, published in Otafsky and 'Abbas Muhammad Sadim 1995, no. 73; D: Cleveland Museum of Art, 83.128 (7) Copenhagen, David Collection, 25/ 1992, published in Folsach and Bernsted 1993, no. 10 (8) Maastricht, Saint Servatius, 23-1, 23-2, 23-3 published in Annemarie Stauffer. Die Mittelälterlichen Textilen von St. Servatius in Maastricht. Riggisberg, 1991. (9) Munich, Residenz-museum, published in Müller-Christensen 1976, pp. 17–19, nos. 7, 8.

2. I am indebted to Nobuko Kajitani for freely sharing with me her considerable knowledge of these textiles.

3. See sources noted in note 1.

4. Item (2) A in note 1. See D. G. Shepherd. "Medieval Persian Silks in Fact and Fancy (A Refutation of the Riggisberg Report)." Bulletin de Liaison du Centre International d'Etude des Textils Anciens, 39–40 (1974), p. 82 n. 2, ref. Textile Museum, 31.3.

5. Shepherd 1994 (note 4), p. 7. Regarding the Metropolitan piece, which was acquired from the Kelekian estate, there is no information in the Museum files that it was previously in the Pozzi or Indjoudjian collections, so it is impossible to confirm Shepherd's identification of it with item ii on the list given in Phyllis Ackerman, "Textiles of the Islamic Periods, a History: The Early Islamic and Seljuq Periods." In Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, eds. Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, vol. 3, pp. 1995ff, New York and London, 1938–39, p. 1998, no. 5.

6. Donald King In Spink & Son Ltd. Textiles from the Sangiorgi Collection. London, 1985, no. 4

7. Müller-Christensen 1976 (note 1), pp. 14–15.








　




　




　

Dikran G. Kelekian (American, born Turkey), New York (until d. 1951; his estate, New York, 1951–52;sold to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Glory of Byzantium," March 11–July 6, 1997, no. 269.

Evans, Helen, and William D. Wixom, ed. "Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D. 843–1261." In The Glory of Byzantium. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997. no. 269a, pp. 412–13, ill. (color).