Cloth of Gold with Rabbit Wheels (c. 1225–50): Art, History and Details

Cloth of Gold with Rabbit Wheels (c. 1225–50) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Cloth of Gold with Rabbit Wheels Lampas; silk and gold thread Eastern Iranian world, about 1225-1260 The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1993.140 (Cat. no. 45) The lavish amount of gold-used here for both the pattern and the background-reflects the extravagant taste of the Mongols. Known as "cloths of gold," such textiles were primarily woven for the official costumes of the Mongol court. Repeated roundels enclose four rabbits that share two pairs of ears and run in a circle. This motif, known as an animal wheel, is very ancient in Asia. Rabbits are commonly found on eastern Iranian metalwork dating from around 1200. Although the Mongol conquest of the Eastern Iranian world had taken place (1220-22), traditional silk patterns continued to be produced through the mid-1200s.

Object facts

• Title: Cloth of Gold with Rabbit Wheels
• Date: c. 1225–50
• Culture: Eastern Iran
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk and gold thread: lampas
• Dimensions: Overall: 65.5 x 23.2 cm (25 13/16 x 9 1/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1993.140

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “1993 Annual Report.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (July 1994): 143–218.
• Watt, James C. Y., Anne E. Wardwell, and Morris Rossabi. When silk was gold: Central Asian and Chinese textiles. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1997.
• Andrew, Sue. "Leaps and Bounds: Crossing Continents and Cultures." In The Three Hares: A Curiosity Worth Regarding. Tom Greeves, Sue Andrew and Chris Chapman, pp. 232-255. South Molton: Skerryvore Productions Ltd., 2016.

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.