Fragment with arcade and palmettes (1200s): Art, History and Details

Fragment with arcade and palmettes (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Although geometric patterns were fashionable in all media throughout the Islamic world, examples in textiles are the most abundant from Islamic Spain. In this fragment, gold-thread strapwork interlaces to form stars above columns that frame colorful palmette leaves in a fine tapestry weave.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment with arcade and palmettes
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: Spain, probably Granada
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk and gold thread: tapestry weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 17.8 x 10.8 cm (7 x 4 1/4 in.); Mounted: 26.4 x 19.7 cm (10 3/8 x 7 3/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1952.105

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Guiffrey, Jules, and Gaston Migeon. La collection Kelekian. Étoffes & tapis d'Orient & de Venise. Paris: Librairie centrale des beaux-arts, 1900.
• May, Florence Lewis. Silk Textiles of Spain, Eighth to Fifteenth Century. New York: Printed by order of the trustees, the Hispanic Society of America, 1957.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.