Textile Panel with Birds amid Flowering Vines

first half 17th century

Not on view

The interlocking pattern of this silk panel features a popular bird-and-flower motif that alternates direction in each repeated row. The effect of achieving a borderless repeat is a challenge confronting textile designers in the planning phases of the design, and indicates great skill when executed as flawlessly as in this panel. Enhanced with foil-wrapped metal threads covering the ground cloth, bird-and-flower textiles produced in the seventeenth century feature a soft palette of pistachio green and safflower orange that was highly susceptible to fading. The overall shape of this piece indicates that it was used as a chasuble, a sleeveless Christian vestment, attesting to the popularity and status of this type of textile in Europe.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

References

Title: Textile Panel with Birds amid Flowering Vines
Date: first half 17th century
Geography: Attributed to Iran
Medium: Silk, metal wrapped thread; taqueté
Dimensions: Textile: L. 38 1/2 in. (97.8 cm)
W. 28 3/4 in. (73 cm)
Mount: H. 44 in. (111.8 cm)
W. 33 1/4 in. (84.5 cm)
Wt. 30 lbs. (13.6 kg)
Classification: Textiles-Woven
Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1926
Object Number: 26.231.2
Curatorial Department: Islamic Art

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