Fragment of a furnishing textile (1800s): Art, History and Details

Fragment of a furnishing textile (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The dense blue embroidery on this fragment is associated with the city of Fes, and was likely part of a larger textile used to decorate the interior of a Moroccan home. It might have been used as a cover for a pillow or low sofas lining the walls of a sitting room. Historically, some of these textiles were described as "Aleuj" (a pejorative term loosely translating to 'convert') and thought to be made by Circassian women from the Caucasus region in western Asia.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment of a furnishing textile
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Africa, North Africa, Morocco, Fes, Moroccan embroiderer
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: Cotton, silk, dye
• Dimensions: Overall: 22.2 x 45.1 cm (8 3/4 x 17 3/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1933.422

A detail from the museum

This textile was purchased in 1933 from the "A Century of Progress International Exposition," better known as the Chicago World's Fair.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Denamur, Isabelle, Pierre Ferbos, and Louise Rogers Lalaurie. Moroccan textile embroidery. Paris: Flammarion, 2003.

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.