Textile with Flora (c. 1500s): Art, History and Details

Textile with Flora (c. 1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This luxurious furnishing fabric might have been a wall covering or part of a long robe. The pattern of floral bouquets framed by curved leaves was popular in Italy, Spain, and Turkey during the 16th century. Darkened by oxidation, the fine silver weft, or horizontal, threads would have once shone brightly and glittered in the flickering candlelight that illuminated rooms before electricity. The preserved selvage edges reveal the width of the original loom; the edge’s color and style may even indicate the quality of the silk thread and the identity of the guild that wove it.

Object facts

• Title: Textile with Flora
• Date: c. 1500s
• Culture: Italy or Spain
• Type: Textile
• Technique: silk, linen, silver thread
• Dimensions: Overall: 90.8 x 59.4 cm (35 3/4 x 23 3/8 in.); Mounted: 97.8 x 66.7 cm (38 1/2 x 26 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1954.321

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

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.