Fragment with Senmurvs (prior to 1971): Art, History and Details

Fragment with Senmurvs (prior to 1971) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This fragment preserves three large, aligned, tangent ovals in a column. Each oval contains a senmurv ornamented with foliate and geometric forms; the border contains a stylized foliate motif. Ovals are joined at their cardinal points with a cross-shaped geometric figure within a smaller oval bordered with pearls. Interspaces contain X-shaped medallions consisting of four palmettes around a diamond center. According to recent analysis of the museum’s Buyid and Abbasid textile materials, some have been identified as modern reproductions.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment with Senmurvs
• Date: prior to 1971
• Culture: Iran or Iraq, in the style of the Abbasid period (750–1258)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk: lampas weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 101.4 x 45.7 cm (39 15/16 x 18 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1971.22

A detail from the museum

Senmurvs are benevolent, mythical birds in Persian mythology and literature.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1971.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 59, no. 1, 1972, pp. 3–46.
• Blair, Sheila S., et al. “Reevaluating the Date of the ‘Buyid’ Silks by Epigraphic and Radiocarbon Analysis.” Ars Orientalis, vol. 22, 1992, pp. 1–41.

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.