Wall Hanging (pardah) (1800–1850): Art, History and Details

Wall Hanging (pardah) (1800–1850) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Dazzling patterns with saturated colors in the ikat technique provided vibrant wall hangings in reception rooms of the urban elite in Central Asia. In this splendid example composed of five loom widths, the three central lengths display a precise design of amulets complemented by palmettes in the two outer lengths. The irregular contours, telltale indicators of ikat, are masterfully controlled with five rich colors, illustrating the high quality of the earliest known examples in Central Asia from the first half of the 1800s. In the ikat technique, the design was dyed on the warp before it was woven in a resist-dye process. Thread was tightly wrapped around the warp to resist dye penetration for each area of color. This labor-intensive process created hangings and garments cherished for their vibrant colors with "fuzzy" contours.

Object facts

• Title: Wall Hanging (pardah)
• Date: 1800–1850
• Culture: Uzbekistan, Bukhara
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk: warp-faced plain weave, warp-ikat; cotton weft
• Dimensions: Overall: 211.8 x 142.2 cm (83 3/8 x 56 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2006.150

Collection credit

Gift of Guido Goldman

Further reading listed by the museum

• Marechal, Andrea and Daniel Shaffer. "Ikat: Guido Goldman Collector. HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles. Issue 27, vol. 7, no. 3 August/September 1985.
• Gill, Elizabeth. “Retinal Art?” HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles. [London] Issue 93, July 1997.
• Highet, Juliet. "Silks from Islamic Lands." The Asian Art Newspaper: Monthly for Collectors, Dealers, Museums and Galleries 17, issue 5 (March 2014):16-18.

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.