Textile Fragment
1250-1350 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
The pattern of this lampas silk is in vertical bands separated by narrow stripes. The former contain alternately a row of palmettes or an inscription in Arabic characters signifying "The Sultan, the Wise". This fragment originally came from the treasury of St. Mary's Church in Gdansk, Poland. Several similar fragments with Arabic inscriptions have been found in ecclesiastical contexts in Europe: being used in reliquaries but also making up dalmatics and copes. It is believed that the textiles were produced in the East, somewhere in the vast Mongol Empire of the time, particularly for export to the West.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Pattern woven silk |
| Brief description | Middle East, Textile, Fragment. Polychrome lampas, silk with gold thread, known as 'cloth of gold', with horizontal bands and Arabic inscription, Ilkhanid Iran or Mongol Central Asia, 1250-1350 |
| Physical description | Lampas in coloured silks and gold thread. The pattern is in horizontal bands separated by narrow stripes. The former contain alternately a row of palmettes or an Arabic inscription, reading 'The wise, the Sultan'. In the stripes are rows of crescents enclosing discs. The pattern is throughout in gold thread, and the ground of the bands is dark or light red, blue or green, that of the stripes is pale blue. The gold thread consists of strips of gilt leather wound round a core of flax or hemp. |
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| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Object history | The fragment came from the treasury of St. Mary's Church, Gdansk, and was acquired with the Bock collection in 1875. |
| Historical context | Fragments of the same silk are now in Berlin (Kunstgewerbemuseum 1875.259), and were previously also in the 14th-century Marienkirche (Church of St Mary) in Gdansk. |
| Summary | The pattern of this lampas silk is in vertical bands separated by narrow stripes. The former contain alternately a row of palmettes or an inscription in Arabic characters signifying "The Sultan, the Wise". This fragment originally came from the treasury of St. Mary's Church in Gdansk, Poland. Several similar fragments with Arabic inscriptions have been found in ecclesiastical contexts in Europe: being used in reliquaries but also making up dalmatics and copes. It is believed that the textiles were produced in the East, somewhere in the vast Mongol Empire of the time, particularly for export to the West. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | 783-1875 |
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| Record created | July 18, 2007 |
| Record URL |
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