Textile with Tiny Leaves (1275–1350): Art, History and Details

Textile with Tiny Leaves (1275–1350) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The shimmering gold of the tiny scattered leaves in this silk perfectly suited the taste of the Mongol court. Showing no Chinese or eastern Iranian influence, this type of pattern appears to have been indigenous to eastern Central Asia. The closest parallels to the tiny leaves densely strewn across the surface are found among the silk tapestries of the Uyghurs.

Object facts

• Title: Textile with Tiny Leaves
• Date: 1275–1350
• Culture: Central Asia, Il-khanid (Mongol) period
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk and gold thread; tabby with supplementary weft
• Dimensions: Overall: 14.5 x 15.5 cm (5 11/16 x 6 1/8 in.); Mounted: 30.5 x 33.7 cm (12 x 13 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1985.33

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1985." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 2 (February 1986): 26–71.
• Wardwell, Anne E. "Flight of the Phoenix: Crosscurrents in Late Thirteenth- to Fourteenth-Century Silk Patterns and Motifs." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 1 (January 1987): 2–35.
• Wardwell, Anne E. "Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven with Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries)." In Islamic Art III, 95-173. New York: The Islamic Art Foundation, 1989.

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.