Textile with Palmettes (1200s–1300s): Art, History and Details

Textile with Palmettes (1200s–1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Designs of repeated ogives were popular in Central Asia and survive in a number of variations. Usually, the ogival frame encloses a floral motif, as in this example. Sometimes paired animals occur instead. Silks with this type of pattern were exported to Western Asia and to Europe, where they inspired textile designs woven locally. Mongol silks with exotic floral and animal patterns were acquired for use as clothing and furnishings by the clergy and nobility. They were also used by painters as models for hangings or garments.

Object facts

• Title: Textile with Palmettes
• Date: 1200s–1300s
• Culture: Central Asia, Il-khanid (Mongol) period
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk and gold thread; tabby with supplementary weft
• Dimensions: Overall: 85.5 x 35 cm (33 11/16 x 13 3/4 in.); Mounted: 106.7 x 50.8 cm (42 x 20 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1993.253

A detail from the museum

Some of the original coral-red background can be seen along the edges, where it hasn't faded to off-white.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “1993 Annual Report.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (1994): 143–218.
• Watt, James C. Y., Anne E. Wardwell, and Morris Rossabi. When silk was gold: Central Asian and Chinese textiles. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1997.
• Shea, Eiren. "The Spread of Gold Thread Production in the Mongol Period: A Study of Gold Textiles in the China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou." Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 50 (2021).

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.