Fragment with lions and griffins in combat (1459–1669 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)): Art, History and Details

Fragment with lions and griffins in combat (1459–1669 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Against a diaper-patterned background are roundels each containing a Tree of Life flanked by a lion and dragon in combat, birds, and griffins. The rondels are framed with a frieze of running animals. Twelve-sided figures in the interspaces enclose diamonds with pairs of confronted birds and animals flanking another Tree of Life.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment with lions and griffins in combat
• Date: 1459–1669 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)
• Culture: Iran ?, in the style of the Buyid period (945–1055)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk: lampas weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 50.8 x 71.1 cm (20 x 28 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1968.221

A detail from the museum

A Kufic inscription is in the rectangular frame between each rondel.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Annual Report for 1968.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 56, no. 6, 1969, pp. 209–248.
• Blair, Sheila S., Jonathan M. Bloom, and Anne E. Wardwell. "Reevaluating the Date of the "Buyid" Silks by Epigraphic and Radiocarbon Analysis." Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 1-41.
• Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland; New Haven: Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015.

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.