Cloth of Gold: Displayed Falcons (mid-1200s): Art, History and Details

Cloth of Gold: Displayed Falcons (mid-1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Mongol ceremonial robes, known as zhisun, were made from textiles woven with gold and silk of one color. These were given by Mongol emperors to members of the court to be worn during festivals and on important occasions that usually included lavish banquets. Like the Winged Lions and Griffins (CMA 1989.50), the design of this silk is a uniquely Central Asian synthesis of eastern Iranian and Chinese elements. Motifs and technical details shared by the two silks, moreover, leave no doubt that they were produced in the same city.

Object facts

• Title: Cloth of Gold: Displayed Falcons
• Date: mid-1200s
• Culture: Central Asia
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk and gold thread, lampas
• Dimensions: Overall: 57.5 x 18.4 cm (22 5/8 x 7 1/4 in.); Mounted: 67.9 x 29.8 cm (26 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1996.297

A detail from the museum

This silk lampas weave textile with gold thread features double-headed falcons against a background of vine scrolls.

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Renaissance Armor, Early Islamic Ceramic, French Vase, Gleitsman Painting Added to Museum Collection,” December 13, 1996, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Watt, James C. Y., Anne E. Wardwell, and Morris Rossabi. When silk was gold: Central Asian and Chinese textiles. 1997.
• Watt, James C. Y., and Maxwell K. Hearn. The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

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.