Woven silk
- Place of origin:
Italy (possibly, made)
Spain (possibly, made)
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
- Materials and Techniques:
Woven silk and metal thread
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
Medieval and Renaissance, room 10a, case WS
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A small group of exotic silks like this one survive, with figures of real or imaginary birds and animals, sometimes enclosed in circles or geometric compartments. These are very early examples of silks woven in Italy. Technically and stylistically, this silk also resembles those woven in Spain at this time.
Both pattern and technique indicate the early date; the wyvern (a winged two legged dragon), eagles and palmettes are part of the repertoire of design absorbed into Italian silk weaving from the Byzantine and Isalmic Near East and as far away as China in some cases. This may have come from an ecclesiastical source, from which most early textiles survive, but silks like these were also used for dress and furnishings.
Physical description
This woven brocaded lampas depicts wyverns, eagles and palmettes. Lampas woven with tabby ground and tabby pattern in silk and brocaded in silk and silver-gilt
Place of Origin
Italy (possibly, made)
Spain (possibly, made)
Date
ca. 1270-1330 (made)
Artist/maker
unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques
Woven silk and metal thread
Dimensions
Height: 31.5 cm maximum, Width: 22.7 cm, Depth: 0.2 cm
Historical context note
A small group of exotic silks like this one survive, with figures of real or imaginery birds and animals, sometimes enclosed in circles or geometric compartments. These are very early examples of silks woven in Italy or Spain. A similar piece in the collections of the Abegg-Stiftung in Switzerland (inv. no. 202) has been attributed to Spain on stylistic and technical grounds, and a fragment of the same silk in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon was bought in Spain in 1904. (Otavsky, Karel. Mittelalterliche Textilien I. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1995, no. 93, pp. 169-71).
Both pattern and technique indicate the early date; the wyvern (a winged two legged dragon), eagles and palmettes are part of the repertoire of design absorbed into Italian silk weaving from the Byzantine and Isalmic Near East and as far away as China in some cases. This may have come from an ecclesiastical source, from which most early textiles survive, but silks like these were also used for dress and furnishings.
Descriptive line
Lampas woven silk brocaded in silver-gilt thread and silk with pattern of wyverns
Production Note
This attribution is more open than that allocated when the object came into the collection, on the basis of the similarity between a silk attributed to Spain by Otavsky in 1995 (Mittelalterlich Textilien I. Riggisberg: Abegg Stiftung, 1995, cat. 93, pp. 169-71. A fragment of the same silk in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon was bought in Spain in 1904.
Materials
Silk; Silver-gilt thread
Techniques
Woven; Brocaded
Subjects depicted
Dragons; Eagle (bird)
Categories
Textiles
Collection code
T&F
