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Textile

Unknown13th–15th century

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York, United States

Incomplete roundel and a portion of the frame of a tangent roundel, the former containing a pair of confronted sphinxes flanking a plant form, each are being attacked by a much smaller lion. With a wide frame of interlacing foliated scrolls within pearl guard borders, in which pearl centers (due to demands of technique) are rendered tiny crosses. Very incomplete portions of interspaced ornament showing peacock tails. Red and green on a cream ground, with small amounts of gold metallic (cream silk wound with gilded goldbeaters' skin) on faces of sphinxes and small lions. Mounted on board with design painted in with gouache.

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  • Title: Textile
  • Creator: Unknown
  • Date Created: 13th–15th century
  • Physical Dimensions: w330 x h318 cm
  • Type: Textile
  • Rights: Gift of John Pierpont Morgan, from the Badia Collection
  • Medium: Medium: silk, gilded parchment on silk core, board, gouache Technique: compound weave (taquete)
  • Provenance: ex-collection: Francisco Miquel y Badía
  • Exhibitions: New York: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Shahzia Sikander Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection, March 6–September 7, 2009.
  • Dimensions: H x W: 31.8 x 33 cm (12 1/2 x 13 in.)Mount: 45.7 x 61 cm (18 x 24 in.)
  • Bibliography: Elsberg, H.A. and Guest, R. "Another silk fabric woven at Baghdad." Burlington Magazine, June 1934, page 271-72. Reath, Nancy Andrews. Weaves of Hand-loom Fabrics "The History of Brocading," The Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, 1927. Page 53.Von Falke, Otto. Decorative Silks, 3rd ed. New York: W. Helburn, Inc., 1936. Fig. 150: Sphinx tissue in Vich, 12th century. See also pages 22-23.Von Falke, Otto. Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei, Verlag Ernst Wasmuth A.G. Berlin, 1913. Fig. 189: Sphinxenstoff in Vich, 12, Jahrh. See also page 117.Williams, Leonard. The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, page 19, Vol. III, T.N. Foulis, London, 1947.Historia General del Arte. Historia del Mueble, Tejido, Bordado y Tapiz por. D. Francisco Miguel y Badia; Metalisteria, Ceramica, Vidrios, por. D. Antonio Garcia Llanso (Barcelona, 1897). Fig. 38 and Page 216.Shepherd, Dorothy G. " Another Silk from the Tomb of Saint Bernard Calvo," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, April 1951, pages. 74-75.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

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