Fragment with Inscription (before 1962): Art, History and Details

Fragment with Inscription (before 1962) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A design in dark brown on a background of dark tan preserves five nearly complete double-headed "eagles" and almost half of a sixth, arranged in aligned rows. Each eagle grasps griffins in its talons. Small birds decorate the shoulders of its wings, and on the wing of each small bird is inscribed with the word “mercy.” Superimposed on the eagle, as if being carried, is a small standing human figure which bears on the upper part of its arms the word “blessing.” At the top of the textile, a Kufic inscription repeats a line from the diwan, collected poetry, of al-Buhturi.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment with Inscription
• Date: before 1962
• Culture: Iran, in the style of the Buyid period (945–1055)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk: lampas weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 171 x 65 cm (67 5/16 x 25 9/16 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1962.264

A detail from the museum

The top inscription is a line by poet Al-Walīd ibn Ubaidillah Al-Buḥturī (821–897).

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Wiet, Gaston. Soieries Persanes. Le Caire: Imprimerie de L'Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale, 1948.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.