Textile Fragment with Double-Headed Eagles and Facing Lions

Textile Fragment

The design on this fragmentary textile consists of two rows of animals situated within roundels, with the upper roundels containing double-headed eagles and the lower ones, confronted lions. The roundels are situated against a dense vegetal background outlined by the ground warp, with the resulting depiction occurring in the negative. Prima facie, the textile appears most closely related to a series of lampas textiles commonly attributed to eastern Iran or Central Asia.[1] Like the present fragment, they feature animals enclosed in rows of roundels against a densely decorated background. Where this textile differs, however, is in the greater spacing—both vertically and horizontally—between roundels, the offsetting of the upper and lower rows, and its presentation of a different animal in each row, as opposed to a single creature depicted throughout.[2]

Despite these eastern similarities, the style of the zoomorphic motifs in this textile fragment relates to western examples. The lions resemble those seen in the Kay Qubad I textile (cat. 5 in this volume, Musée des Tissus et Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, 23475) and the doorknocker with lions and dragons (cat. 136d in this volume, Musée du Louvre, MAO 97).[3] Also interesting is the treatment of the double-headed eagles, whose breasts are formed through an inverted palmette. This peculiar motif appears on tiles from the Rum Seljuq palace of Kubadabad (cat. 148a in this volume, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, I.6579) and also on Iranian textiles.

Both Great Seljuq and Rum Seljuq textiles feature both lions and double-headed eagles. Lions were frequently used as symbols of rulership and seem to have been of particular significance throughout the Seljuq lands. There is also a body of evidence suggesting that double-headed eagles may have held similar regal connotations for the Rum Seljuqs, with depictions occurring frequently on royal architecture, coins, (MMA 99.35.2376) and possibly textiles.[4] Perhaps more significant are a number of tiles excavated from Kubadabad palace depicting double-headed eagles with the word "sultan" inscribed across their chests.[5] Given the sheer number of objects on which such iconography occurs, this textile cannot unequivocally be ascribed to a royal patron. It is, however, beyond a doubt that the combination of these two creatures would have carried significant regal significance in the Seljuq period and beyond.

Michael Falcetano in [Canby, Beyazit, and Rugiadi 2016]

Footnotes:

1. When Silk was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Catalogue by James C. Y. Watt, Anne E. Wardwell, and Morris Rossabi. New York, 1997, pp. 144–45, no. 35, and pp. 154–59, nos. 43–45. Cat. 44 (Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum, 1984.344) has since broadened attribution to Central Asia, North Africa, or Sicily, while the others, in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, remain attributed to eastern Iran and Central Asia.

2. Notably, the closest parallel is a Chinese textile attributed to the Yuan dynasty with dragons and phoenixes that appear in similarly spaced and offset roundels (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1995.73; ibid., p. 153, no. 42).

3. Indeed, the lions in cat. 5, while significantly more mannerist, paw at a stylized Tree of Life in a manner similar to those in cat. 149. As such, both textiles differ from Iranian depictions of lions (e.g., cat. 136a in this volume, David Collection, 48/1981; see also ibid., pp. 144–45, no. 35, and pp. 154–55, no. 43).

4. Katharina Otto-Dorn and others have argued that the double-headed-eagle textile from the shrine of Saint Servatius in Siegburg (see cat. 150 in this volume, Collection of Rina and Norman Indictor) would have been manufactured for either Kay Qubad I or one of his successors. See Otto-Dorn, Katharina. “Figural Stone Reliefs on Seljuk Sacred Architecture in Anatolia.” Kunst des Orients 12, nos. 1–2 (1978–79), p. 119.

5. See ibid. and Arık, Rüçhan. Kubad Abad: Selçuklu Saray ve Çinileri. Istanbul, 2000, pp. 82–83, figs. 61, 62.

George Hecksher, San Francisco (1998–2012; gifted to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs," April 25–July 24, 2016, no. 149.

Canby, Sheila R., Deniz Beyazit, and Martina Rugiadi. "The Great Age of the Seljuqs." In Court and Cosmos. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 149, p. 238, ill. (color).