Fragment from a funeral garment or pall (1649–1955 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)): Art, History and Details

Fragment from a funeral garment or pall (1649–1955 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

An incomplete pearl-bordered roundel frames a diamond containing a pair of confronting peacocks that flank a Tree of Life and stand on a pair of confronting lions or dogs. Interspaces between diamond and border contain a pair of griffins (above) and a floral/vine motif (below). Winged bodies of confronting goats(?) stand on top of roundel and at right is an ornate palmette supported by a griffin. Tangential to the roundel at the upper right is a smaller pearl-framed medallion containing a circular Kufic inscription around a diaper-patterned center.

Object facts

• Title: Fragment from a funeral garment or pall
• Date: 1649–1955 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)
• Culture: Iran ?, in the style of the Buyid period (945–1055)
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Silk: lampas weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 21 x 23.5 cm (8 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1968.227

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1968.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 56, no. 1, 1969, pp. 3–50.
• “Annual Report for 1968.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 56, no. 6, 1969, pp. 209–248.
• Blair, Sheila S., Jonathan M. Bloom, and Anne E. Wardwell. "Reevaluating the Date of the "Buyid" Silks by Epigraphic and Radiocarbon Analysis." Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 1–41.

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.