Fragments (before 1968): Art, History and Details

Fragments (before 1968) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Geometric medallions aligned on a diaper ground are enclosed in a grid of large and small lozenges. Medallions contain confronting peacocks flanking a Tree of Life. The double border has an inner frieze of running animals and an outer band of Kufic inscription. The larger diamonds contain four-directional palmette trees and two opposed pairs of rampant animals. The smaller diamonds have pairs of peacocks in each corner framing an octagon, which contains two opposed pairs of animals flanking a central lozenge. Floral vines and ornaments fill the interspaces of large and small diamonds.

Object facts

• Title: Fragments
• Date: before 1968
• Culture: Iran or Iraq, in the style of the Seljuq period (1037–1194)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk: lampas weave
• Dimensions: Average: 49 x 33 cm (19 5/16 x 13 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1968.223

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.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.