linen, gold, 1300s, Italian/Spanish; Compound weave, half silk, birds in ogees

Fragment of textile. Red satin, woven in green, yellow and white silk with a diaper pattern of ogee-shaped compartments, each outlined by large conventional leaves and filled in with a pinnacle, supported by two crowned lions rampant and gardant.

Purchased from the collection of Mon. Stanislas Baron. 103 specimens received on 23 June 1893. Collection purchased for 2400 francs including four additional fragments, one piece Hispano-Moresque and the other from the mantle of Don Felipe, called The Wise.

William Morris writes to recommend the purchase, 14 July 1893: 'This collection includes a great number of pieces of various dates and countries, ranging from the 10th to the 16th centuries, but the greater number of the 13th and 14th probably woven in Syria, Sicily and some few at Lucca. They are all of high excellence as works of art; the designs being very inventive, and of great beauty and thoroughly adapted to the material in which they are executed'.

Collection registered no. 759 to 798-1893.

Purchase price £25. (From Register)

Samples of coloured threads from this object have been taken and are being analysed as part of a collaboration between the V&A and the Spanish Research project "Caracterización de als producciones textiles de la Antigüedad Tardía y Edad Media temprana: tejidos coptos, sasánidas, bizantinos e hispanomusulmanes en las colecciones públicas españolas" ("Characterization of Late Antique and Early Medieval textile production: Coptic, Sasanian, Byzantine and Spanish Muslim textiles in Spanish national collections") (HAR2008-04161) directed by Dr Laura Rodríguez Peinado, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Dpt. de Historia del Arte I (Medieval).

785-1893