Textile Fragment

Textile Fragment

The inscription on this textile is based on the Arabic word for God, "Allah," and it provides a framework for decorative focus rather than literal meaning. In Fatimid textiles from the latter half of the eleventh century there was a decline in historical inscriptions and an increased interest in the ornamental potential of Arabic script. Legibility and literary accuracy succumbed to decorative repeating patterns. These stylized kufic inscriptions often border a row of roundels filled with animals such as griffins and opposed birds.

Although the modes of representation and the motifs themselves recall classical and Coptic manufacture, this group of textiles does not represent the transition from Coptic to Islamic textiles. The use of silk, instead of linen or wool, in tapestry weave and the type of kufesque script depicted place these textiles somewhat later in the second half of the eleventh century.

It would appear then that a renaissance, a revival of antique style and themes, manifested itself in Fatimid Egypt in the later eleventh to twelfth centuries.

[Walker and Froom, 1992]

[ Joseph Abemayor, Cairo, until 1927; sold to H.E. Winlock for MMA]

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Tiraz: Inscribed Textiles from Islamic Workshops," December 15, 1992–March 14, 1993, no. 4.

New York. The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Spain, 1000–1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith," August 30, 2021–January 30, 2022.

Dimand, Maurice S. "Egypto-Arabic Textiles Recent Accessions." Museum of Metropolitan Art Bulletin vol. 22, no. 11 (1927). p. 276, ill. fig. 4.

Walker, Daniel S., and Aimee Froom. "Exhibition Notebook." In Tiraz: Inscribed Textiles from Islamic Workshops.. New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992. no. 4, pp. 15–16.