Curtain or bedcover (early 1800s): Art, History and Details

Curtain or bedcover (early 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Known as suzani, embroideries with elaborate floral decoration from Central Asia were a significant part of a bride’s dowry and were ceremoniously displayed on special occasions. Women embroidered suzani, mothers passing their skills on to their daughters. Floral and foliate motifs generally dominate, emboldened with several shades of red and multiple borders, perhaps conveying cosmological, medicinal, or fertility associations. However, few display a more bountiful blossoming garden than seen here. Flora radiates from the central fanlike bouquet, a design echoed in the corners of the field and in the wide border, characteristic of work from Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Patterns were drawn on several loosely joined cotton cloths and then embroidered in chain stitch.

Object facts

• Title: Curtain or bedcover
• Date: early 1800s
• Culture: Tajikistan, Ura Tube
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: plain weave: cotton; embroidery: silk
• Dimensions: Average: 216.5 x 188.6 cm (85 1/4 x 74 1/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1916.1311

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland, OH; New Haven, CT: The Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015.

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.