Lampas with dancers and musicians (1600–1650): Art, History and Details

Lampas with dancers and musicians (1600–1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This sturdy silk with extensive silver-metal thread displays a dancer and musicians in varied Iranian and European attire, including curved-brim Portuguese or Dutch hats, that reflect the cosmopolitanism initiated by Shah ‘Abbas (reigned 1587–1629). The figures in this landscape are about the same size and equally spaced with minimal interaction, yet they create movement that disguises the repeat of the design. Although the history of textiles is replete with anonymity, signed silks were woven in Iran around 1600. The name of the presumed designer, Abdallah, appears in cursive script on the tambourines. The rise of signed textiles followed a shift away from royal manuscript patronage, causing artists to sign their work to sell in the marketplace. European influence, a new distinguishing hallmark, was transmitted through engravings by traveling European artists.

Object facts

• Title: Lampas with dancers and musicians
• Date: 1600–1650
• Culture: Iran, Safavid period (1501–1722)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: silk and silver-metal thread: lampas, brocaded
• Dimensions: Overall: 87.7 x 52.1 cm (34 1/2 x 20 1/2 in.); Mounted: 94 x 58.4 cm (37 x 23 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1953.17

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ausstellung von Meisterwerken muhammedanischer Kunst, 1910 (MUNICH), Max van BERCHEM, Moriz DREGER, Ernst KUEHNEL, Camillo LIST, Fredrik Robert MARTIN, Friedrich SARRE, and Severin SCHROEDER. Die Ausstellung Von Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst in München, 1910. Herausgegeben Von F. Sarre Und F.R. Martin Unter Mitwirkung Von M. Van Berchem, M. Dreger, E. Kühnel, C. List Und S. Schröder. [With Two Hundred and Fifty-Seven Plates.]. 1912.
• Pope, Arthur Upham, Phyllis Ackerman, and Theodore Bestermann. A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present. London: Oxford University Press, 1938.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.