Wedding Veil (1800s): Art, History and Details

Wedding Veil (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Brides traditionally concealed their faces during their weddings and afterward as newly married women and on special occasions. This elaborate type, which includes a cotton netting rectangle that permitted vision, was only worn by Tajik Turkmen. The decoration features motifs that can be interpreted as birds or palmette leaves in a style that characterizes early Islamic art and that may have originated in Iran.

Object facts

• Title: Wedding Veil
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Tajikistan, Tajik tribe, 19th century
• Type: Textile
• Technique: silk, cotton, embroidery
• Dimensions: Average: 76.2 x 75.6 cm (30 x 29 3/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1916.1235

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Compass: Common Thread.” Hali, i. 228 (Summer 2026): 36-39.

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.