Fragment (900s–1000s): Art, History and Details

Fragment (900s–1000s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The design of this textile offers an interesting iconographic puzzle. The double-headed eagle was a common motif in the art of the Near East in ancient times and from there seems to have found its way into Byzantine and European art. The animal tail ending in an animal's head is also found in Near Eastern art and is particularly noted in textiles of the Seljuk period (1000s–1100s) in Persia. However, the division of the roundel frame into two halves ending in animal heads is not known in the art of the Near East nor is the continuous knot motif which occurs just behind the animal head of the frames. Both of these motifs are familiar in the art of the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Scandinavian peoples of Europe.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment
• Date: 900s–1000s
• Culture: Byzantium
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk and gold: compound twill, brocaded
• Dimensions: Overall: 46.4 x 54.6 cm (18 1/4 x 21 1/2 in.); Mounted: 61.9 x 67 x 2.5 cm (24 3/8 x 26 3/8 x 1 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1950.2

A detail from the museum

The entire pattern is in gold thread, except for such minor details as claws and eyes which are in golden tan silk on a rose-red ground.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Shepherd, Dorothy. "A Medieval Brocade." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 9 (November 1950): 195-196
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild and Brigitta Schmedding. Abegg-Stiftung Bern a Riggisberg = Abegg-Stiftung Bern in Riggisberg. II Textilien. Bern: Paul Haupt, 1973.

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.