Bracelet (14th-15th century): Artwork and History

Bracelet (14th-15th century) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Islamic.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

For hundreds of years, women up and down the eastern coast of Africa wore bracelets like these as highly fashionable accessories. Simple monochromatic glass bangles first became common in Egypt beginning in the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE), with multiple color chips and new designs emerging during the Roman period (30 BCE–395 CE). After the arrival of Islam in the 7th century, elaborately designed bracelets became the norm. In the 17th century, artists began to add a multicolored spiral band on the outside of each bangle, seen here in black and white. Glass workshops continued to produce such bangles until the end of the 19th century.

Object facts

• Title: Bracelet
• Date: 14th-15th century
• Artist attribution: Islamic
• Medium: Glass
• Dimensions: 0.8 × 6.4 × 6.4 cm (11 × 2 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.)
• Type: Costume and Accessories
• Department: Arts of Africa
• Reference number: 1894.697

Collection credit

Purchased with funds provided by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.