Carpet Fragment (late 1800s–early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Carpet Fragment (late 1800s–early 1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This rectangular fragment has large spade-shaped palmettes filling each corner. The palmettes bear dark blue and red animals and birds on a cream/ivory background. The central dark blue medallion encloses an irregular, inscription-bearing green square. At the top and bottom center is a smaller inscription-bearing square with date palms extending from cardinal points; vertical palms divide the rectangle, and horizontal palms delineate the start of a new repeat wherein palmettes have dark blue background with cream/ivory animal figures.

Object facts

• Title: Carpet Fragment
• Date: late 1800s–early 1900s
• Culture: Iran, Rayy
• Type: Carpet
• Technique: Silk: knotted pile
• Dimensions: Overall: 61 x 37.5 cm (24 x 14 3/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1988.243

Collection credit

Gift of Milton Girod

Further reading listed by the museum

• Koechlin, Raymond, Gaston Migeon, and Florence Heywood. Oriental Art; Ceramics, Fabrics, Carpets; One Hundred Plates in Colour. London: Ernest Benn Ltd., n.d. [1928].
• "The Year in Review for 1988." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76, no. 2 (1989): 30-75. Accessed May 25, 2020.
• Smith, Gregory D., Joan M. Esson, Victor J. Chen, Robin M. Hanson. “Forensic dye analysis in cultural heritage: Unraveling the authenticity of the earliest Persian knotted-pile silk carpet.” Forensic Science International: Synergy, Volume 3, 2021, 100130, ISSN 2589-871X,

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.