Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History



  • Length of brocaded velvet, late 15th century
    Italian (Venice)
    Silk velvet brocaded with metal-wrapped thread

    148 x 23 in. (375.9 x 58.4 cm)
    Rogers Fund, 1912 (12.49.8)

    The symmetrical pattern and the framework of pointed oval (or ogee) shapes of this velvet are a departure from the large meandering stems seen in many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian velvets (see 46.156.120 and the back of cassone 14.39). The composition of this sumptuous "pomegranate" velvet may have been influenced by textiles from the nearby Ottoman empire; it is characteristic of Turkish textiles of the period as well. However, this piece retains typically European technical features: the two heights of silk pile and metal brocading in two textures, flat and looped—features that are not found in Turkish velvets.

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    Length of brocaded velvet, late 15th century
    Italian (Venice)
    Silk velvet brocaded with metal-wrapped thread

    148 x 23 in. (375.9 x 58.4 cm)
    Rogers Fund, 1912 (12.49.8)


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