Roundel with Central Asian-style "Candelabra Tree"

Textile

A fantastic, conventionalized, composite tree, crowned by an abstract floral device fills the circular medallion of this two-color silk. Placed symmetrically on either side of the tree and springing from the split-palmette base are blades with tips curving away or towards the trunk, leaf sheaths, and palmettes with floral clusters. A design based on a floral scroll fills the border and traces of a floral pattern are found in the interstices. Composite plants or trees derive from Sasanian models, and the artifice was first adapted in Umayyad art. Patterned silks on a Coptic tunic found in the burial ground of Akhmim in Egypt have links to this design, although it is not yet known whether they are woven in that country. This fabric was previously sewn on to a piece of linen that probably was part of a tunic.

Carolyn kane in [Berlin 1981]

[ Dikran G. Kelekian (American, born Turkey), New York, until 1917; sold to MMA]

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammadan Art. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1944. p. 258, ill. fig. 168 (b/w).

Day Florence. "Silks of the Near East." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., vol. 9, no. 4 (December 1950). p. 110, ill. (b/w).

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 14, pp. 54–55, ill. (b/w).

Ali, Wijdan. The Arab Contribution to Islamic Art : From the Seventh to the Fifteenth Centuries. Jordan: The Royal Society of Fine Arts, Jordan, 1999. p. 67, ill. fig. 35 (b/w).

Evans, Helen C., and Brandie Ratliff, ed. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 148, ill. fig. 67 (color).