Quilted cap with star-patterned silk (1000s): Art, History and Details

Quilted cap with star-patterned silk (1000s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This quilted hat is one of a number of hats that have been recovered from Egyptian graves. It consists of silk sewn to a heavily quilted form, the top part of which is ribbed. The design of the silk is based on an eight-pointed star with paired birds above and stylized palmettes in the interspaces. Such hats were worn with or without a turban by persons of ranks.

Object facts

• Title: Quilted cap with star-patterned silk
• Date: 1000s
• Culture: Iran or Iraq, Buyid or Seljuq period
• Type: Textile
• Technique: lampas: silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 22 x 20 x 20 cm (8 11/16 x 7 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1950.525

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Rogers, Clive, and Hero Granger-Taylor. Early Islamic Textiles. Brighton: Rogers & Podmore, 1983.
• 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.