Textile Fragment

Textile Fragment

Cotton textiles from the eastern Islamic world were often inexpensively decorated with simple painted brush strokes. The painted surface decoration of these textiles imitates the more luxuriously embroidered silk inscriptions and also employs the same Abbasid epigraphical style. The painted versions, however, tend to express rather prosaic benedictions in decorative patterns, while the richer caliphal inscriptions ceremoniously proclaim lofty political connections and benedictions.

The inscription on this fragment is legible, but it is the pattern of its words that flows with energy and attracts the viewer. "Perfect blessing" is the basic unit which is embellished with superfluous undersweeps that echo the naturally curved script as it is repeated. The final letter of the word "blessing" (baraka) is extended to punctuate another series of repetitions created in the zone above the main inscription. It is possible that this visually pleasing pattern filled the length of the textile.

Textiles such as this one were usually produced in public textile factories for the middle-class mercantile market in Baghdad and its surrounding areas. Patronage of the city often paralleled that of the court., as enterprising merchants took ideas from royal tiraz fabrics and had them copied for the marketplace.

[Walker and Froom 1992]

Inscription: Arabic inscription in kufic script: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, followed by repetitions of "Perfect blessing" on two lines

George D. Pratt, New York (until 1931; gifted to 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. 20.

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. 20, pp. 31–32.