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Dalmatic

14th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The rich blue and gold cloth used for this church vestment illustrates the international repertory of designs that were used around 1300–1400. The pelicans depicted on the textile, for example, might seem more at home in Italy, where they were used as a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, whereas the undulating flower scroll owes a good deal to Chinese motifs of the time. Yet the structure of the cloth is sufficiently distinctive to allow an attribution to Mongol-ruled Iran. It must have been exported to Europe, since the vestment into which it was made was a dalmatic – a type used by the western church.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Silk lampas with gilt metal thread
Brief description
Middle East, Textile. Blue and gold lampas with motifs of pelicans and cows, made into a dalmatic in Germany, Iran, 1300s
Physical description
Dalmatic, woven silk and metal thread. Probably Iran, 14th century.
It is interesting to know that interaction with China and Europe also occurred in other fields, especially textiles, which were the staple commodity in international trade. After the Mongol expansion in the thirteenth century, for example, demand for cloth of gold and other high-value textiles was very strong, and the Mongols organized production on an Asia-wide scale, moving craftsmen about between East and West Asia in an unprecedented manner. There ware also interchanges with Europe, at least in terms of design. As a result patterns and techniques became internationalized to such a degree that it is often difficult to decide where in all of Asia and Europe a textile was made.
The rich blue and gold cloth used for this dalmatic, a church vestment, illustrates the international repertory of designs that were used at this time. The pelicans depicted on the textile, for instance, might seem more at home in Italy, where they were used as a symbol of Christ’s self-sacrifice, but undulating flower scrolls owe a good deal to Chinese motifs of this kind. Yet the structure of the cloth is sufficiently distinctive to allow an attribution to Mongol-ruled Iran. It must have been exported to Europe, since the vestment into which it was made was a dalmatic, a type used by the Western Church. This probably ensured its survival, stored, perhaps, in the vestry of a great abbey or cathedral, making it one of the largest surviving specimens of a fourteenth-century Iranian textile of this type.
Underlying the production of such rich fabrics was the used of the drawloom, which was worked by two craftsmen: a weaver to operate the loom and create the structure of the cloth, and a ‘drawboy’ to help the weaver generate the complex pattern by constantly raising and lowering the relevant warps. The invention of the drawloom is thought to have taken place in the first century AD, but it is not clear where: it may have occurred simultaneously in China and in the Middle East.
Dimensions
  • Length: 171.5cm
  • Weight: 1.4kg
  • Width: 121.92cm
Style
Object history
purchased from the Bock collection.
Production
Structure points to an origin in Mongol-ruled Iran
Subject depicted
Summary
The rich blue and gold cloth used for this church vestment illustrates the international repertory of designs that were used around 1300–1400. The pelicans depicted on the textile, for example, might seem more at home in Italy, where they were used as a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, whereas the undulating flower scroll owes a good deal to Chinese motifs of the time. Yet the structure of the cloth is sufficiently distinctive to allow an attribution to Mongol-ruled Iran. It must have been exported to Europe, since the vestment into which it was made was a dalmatic – a type used by the western church.
Bibliographic references
  • Tim Stanley (ed.), with Mariam Rosser-Owen and Stephen Vernoit, Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Middle East, London, V&A Publications, 2004 p.123
  • Anne E. Wardwell, "Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven with Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries)", Islamic Art 3 (1989) pp.95-173: fig.63.
  • Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1921) fig.286.
  • Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion, edited by Lesley Ellis Miller and Ana Cabrera Lafuente with Claire Allen-Johnstone, Thames and Hudson Ltd. in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom, 2021, p. 136
  • Miller, Lesley Ellis, and Ana Cabrera Lafuente, with Claire Allen-Johnstone, eds. Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2021. ISBN 978-0-500-48065-6.
  • J. Curtis, I. Sarikhani Sandmann and T. Stanley, Epic Iran: 5000 Years of Culture, London: V&A Publishing, 2021. p.232, cat. no. 174
Collection
Accession number
8361-1863

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Record createdFebruary 18, 2004
Record URL
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