Silk curtain from the Alhambra palace (1300s): Art, History and Details

Silk curtain from the Alhambra palace (1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This is one of two of the largest, most complete, and most ornate curtains to survive from the 1300s when it presumably hung in the royal Alhambra Palace in Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Spain. Its style, artistic vocabulary, and harmonious proportions reflect the magnificent wall decoration in the Alhambra. The motto of the ruling Nasrid dynasty, "There is no conqueror but God," is inscribed in the end borders and central panel. The inscribed striped silk forming the central panel is more worn, suggesting that it was recycled, most likely during the 1300s.

Object facts

• Title: Silk curtain from the Alhambra palace
• Date: 1300s
• Culture: Spain, Granada, Nasrid period
• Type: Textile
• Technique: lampas and taqueté: silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 438.2 x 271.8 cm (172 1/2 x 107 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1982.16

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Partearroyo, Cristina. "Spanish-Muslem Textile," Bulletin de Liaison du Centre international d'etude des textiles anciens, no. 45, pt. 1 (1977), pp. 78–85.
• Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review for 1982.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 70, no. 1, 1983, pp. 3–55.
• Wardwell, Anne E. “A Fifteenth-Century Silk Curtain from Muslim Spain.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 70, no. 2, 1983, pp. 58–72.

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.