Fragment of a Band with Birds and Trees (1500s): Art, History and Details

Fragment of a Band with Birds and Trees (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This lace, made in Sicily, shows a close relationship to a pattern in a model book published in Lyon, France, a commercial center of printing and luxury textile trade with strong ties to Italy. The designs were based on a grid, making it easier for the lace maker to translate the printed image into needlework.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment of a Band with Birds and Trees
• Date: 1500s
• Culture: Italy, Sicily, 1500s
• Type: Lace
• Technique: Bleached linen (est.): needle lace, burato (twined ground and darned in one direction)
• Dimensions: Overall: 5.4 x 23.5 cm (2 1/8 x 9 1/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Lace
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1920.1121

A detail from the museum

Plant motifs, such as the blooming bushes found here, flanked by birds, were popular for their associations with well-being or blessing.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• La Fleur des patrons de lingerie a deux endroitz, a point croise, a point couche, et a point picque et fil dor, fil dargent et fil de soye, ou aultre en quelque ouuraige que ce soit en comprenant l'art de broderie et tissuterie. Lyon: En a maison de Pierre de Saincte Lucie, qz fut du feu prince, 1549.

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.