Embroidered Armenian liturgical curtain (1763): Art, History and Details

Embroidered Armenian liturgical curtain (1763) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This rare Ottoman embroidery features a floral bouquet that enriches the field under an elegant arch of gilt-metal thread. Flanked by vines of tulips and irises on a silver-metal-thread ground, vases of tulips and jonquils within cartouches adorn the main border and the well-turned corners, a sign of high quality. Dated 1763, the textile documents a mid-18th-century style and technique uncommon in Ottoman embroideries. The Armenian community commissioned this pattern for a liturgical curtain. Beneath the arch, Saint John the Baptist appears with a staff of victory, holding his own severed head in one arm and the Lamb of God in the other. The embroidered Armenian inscription reads: "This curtain is in memory of the people of Hassan Pasha Khan who gave it to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist on the Armenian date 10 May 1212 [1763]."

Object facts

• Title: Embroidered Armenian liturgical curtain
• Date: 1763
• Culture: Turkey, Constantinople/Istanbul, Ottoman period (1299–1922)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: twill weave: wool; embroidery, chain stitch: silk, gilt- and silver-metal thread
• Dimensions: Overall: 183 x 119.4 cm (72 1/16 x 47 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2014.13

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kouymjian, Dickran. “An Armenian Liturgical Calendar.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 54, no. 4 (July/August 2014): 12-13.
• Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland; New Haven: 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.