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." <em>Ars Islamica</em> 4 (1937): 54-63.
	page number: 	p. 54-63, fig. 3
	url:		www.jstor.org/stable/25167029

	Underhill, Gertrude. "An Eleventh-Century Mesopotamian Embroidery." <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 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. <em>Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century</em>. 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