The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 18, 2024

Silk fragment with scrolling vines, grape leaves, grapes, and birds

Silk fragment with scrolling vines, grape leaves, grapes, and birds

1325–50
Silk: lampas weave
Overall: 24.1 x 25.4 cm (9 1/2 x 10 in.); Mounted: 32.7 x 34.3 cm (12 7/8 x 13 1/2 in.)
Florence and Charles Abel Oriental Rug Collection by exchange 1971.75
Location: not on view

Description

This silk fragment displays a revolutionary new fashion in Italian textile design, influenced by the exotic patterns in silks imported from China, Byzantium, and Islamic countries of the Middle East. Beginning in the 1320s, instead of the static arrangement of motifs stacked one above the other, Italian designers staggered the motifs, creating asymmetry and movement. Even this fragment suggests motion through the arrangement of motifs in a curved lattice layout. However, the actual motifs—the grape leaves and bunches of grapes—remain typically Italian.
  • ?–1971
    (Loewi - Robertson, Inc., Los Angeles, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1971–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Wardwell, Anne E. "Flight of the Phoenix: Crosscurrents in Late Thirteenth- to Fourteenth-Century Silk Patterns and Motifs." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 1 (1987): 2-35. p. 23, fig. 28 25159970.
    Wardwell, Anne E. "Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven with Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries)." In Islamic Art III, 95-173. New York: The Islamic Art Foundation, 1989. Mentioned: p. 95-173; Reproduced: Fig. 69
    Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland; New Haven: Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 238-239, fig. 6.26
  • Draped in Splendor: Renaissance Textiles and the Church. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 7, 2003-September 26, 2004).
    Venice: Silk and Lace. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-August 11, 1985).
    Year in Review: 1971. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1971-February 6, 1972).
  • {{cite web|title=Silk fragment with scrolling vines, grape leaves, grapes, and birds|url=false|author=|year=1325–50|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1971.75