Ikat tiraz (960–80): Art, History and Details

Ikat tiraz (960–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The "flame" pattern was dyed on the vertical warp threads before weaving began by tightly binding them to resist dye penetration, and repeated for each color. The process and fabric are called ikat, a Malaysian word which may have originated in South Arabia. Yemeni ikats with historical Arabic inscriptions from the 10th century are among the oldest known. This text, written in Kufic script with gold leaf outlined in black, identifies a ruler of the Yemen: ". . . [a]l-Da’i ila al-Haqq, Commander of the Believers, Yusuf b. Yahya b. al-Nasir li-Din Allah Ahmad, son of the apostle of God, may God bless the all." The Arabic phrase "to God" is inverted at the bottom.

Object facts

• Title: Ikat tiraz
• Date: 960–80
• Culture: Yemen, San'a', Zaydi Imam period
• Type: Textile
• Technique: resist-dyed warp (ikat); plain weave with inscription: cotton and gold leaf
• Dimensions: Overall: 60.3 x 64.5 cm (23 3/4 x 25 3/8 in.); Mounted: 67.9 x 74.3 cm (26 3/4 x 29 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1950.353

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Etienne Combe, Jean Sauvaget, and Gaston Wiet. Répertoire chronologique d'épigraphie arabe. Le Caire: Impr. de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1931.
• Wiet, Gaston. 1935. “Tissus Et Tapisseries Du Musée Arabe Du Caire.” Syria 16 (3): 278–90.
• Lamm, C. J. Cotton in Medieval Textiles of the Near East. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1937.

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.