Man's surcoat (khalat) (late 1800s): Art, History and Details

Man's surcoat (khalat) (late 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Prestigious men’s surcoats embellished with designs such as this dramatic decoration in cross-stitch were among the most elaborate silk-thread embroidered garments in Central Asia. In a flamboyant style, large palmettes framed by split palmette leaves dominate with quartered rosettes and smaller flora on a brilliant yellow ground. Foliate vines enhance the edge along the front center opening, hemline, and cuffs. It is lined with an ikat of cypress trees and finger-looped trim. The style and technique represent professional work from Shahr-i Sabz, south of Samarkand. The pattern was drawn on the cotton ground cloth of the surcoat, then disassembled for stitching, and finally reassembled—revealed by severed and misaligned motifs plus mismatched colors.

Object facts

• Title: Man's surcoat (khalat)
• Date: late 1800s
• Culture: Uzbekistan, Shahr-i Sabz
• Type: Garment
• Technique: Silk: embroidery, cross-stitch
• Dimensions: Overall: 150 x 218.4 cm (59 1/16 x 86 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1916.1412

Collection credit

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

Further reading listed by the museum

• Thomson, Nancy. The Heritage of Islam: Notes. London: PCET, 1982.
• Mackie, Louise. "Embroidered Surcoat." Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine, 54 no. 1 (January/February 2014): 27.
• Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland, OH; New Haven, CT: The Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015.

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.