id: 117656 accession number: 1938.300 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1938.300 updated: 2023-03-22 14:07:56.780000 Fragment with peacocks and inscription, 1000–1100s. Iraq, probably Baghdad, Seljuq period. Plain weave: silk warp and cotton weft (mulham); embroidery, couched and split stitches: silk, gilt and silver thread; overall: 31.5 x 40.5 cm (12 3/8 x 15 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1938.300 title: Fragment with peacocks and inscription title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1000–1100s creation date earliest: 1000 creation date latest: 1199 current location: creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: Iraq, probably Baghdad, Seljuq period technique: plain weave: silk warp and cotton weft (mulham); embroidery, couched and split stitches: silk, gilt and silver thread department: Textiles collection: T - Islamic type: Embroidery find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 31.5 x 40.5 cm (12 3/8 x 15 15/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: [bottom]: ". . . [the Compassionat]te [?]. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds and the wor[lds?]." [top]: ". . . command and glory and power and good fortune and . . . peace and command and command [one word garbled]." translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Mme. Paul Mallon, Paris). date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: One of the stories in "The Thousand and One Nights" is of a slave girl named Zumurud who lived in Khurasan and embroidered curtains with designs of animals and birds in colored silk and gold threads. Sumptuous embroideries such as Zumurud made were not only commissioned by rulers, caliphs, and court officials but also widely exported. Today, less than a dozen fragments of these rich embroideries survive. All are worked on "mulham," a fabric having silk warps and cotton wefts that was a speciality of Iran and Iraq. With the exception of the Cleveland Museum of Art's fragment 1952.257, which was found in Baghdad, all of the known examples were preserved until the 1900s in Egyptian graves and refuse heaps. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Lamm, C. J. Cotton in Mediaeval Textiles of the Near East. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1937. page number: p. 126 url: Wiet, Gaston. "Tissus Brodes Mesopotamiens." Ars Islamica 4 (1937): 54-63. page number: p. 54-63, fig. 3 url: www.jstor.org/stable/25167029 Underhill, Gertrude. "An Eleventh-Century Mesopotamian Embroidery." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 1 (1939): 4-5. page number: p. 4-5 url: www.jstor.org/stable/25137977 Cott, Perry Blythe. Siculo-Arabic Ivories. [Princeton]: Publ. for the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University, 1939. page number: pl. 75d url: Monneret de Villard, Ugo. Le pitture musulmane al soffitto della Cappella palatina in Palermo. Roma: La Libreria dello Stato, 1950. page number: p. 36, no. 164 url: 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. page number: Reproduced: P. 159, fig. 4.31; Mentioned: P. 158 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.300/1938.300_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.300/1938.300_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.300/1938.300_full.tif