The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 1, 2023

Samite fragment with hunters

800s

Eastern Iran or Central Asia

Compound twill, silk

Overall: 22 x 41.8 cm (8 11/16 x 16 7/16 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1974.98

Location

not on view

Description

This silk preserves pairs of horsemen hunting ibexes (mountain goats). The ibexes and two pairs of rabbits originally filled the spaces between rows of large floral roundels. Portions of the roundels are preserved at the top and bottom. Although the design was greatly influenced by silks from Egypt and Syria, the abstract style is typically Sogdian. This is one of many Sogdian silks that were traded to Europe and eventually preserved in church treasuries.

Provenance
?-1974
(Dr. Emil Delmar [1876-1959], Budapest, Hungary, and New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1974-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1974.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 62, no. 3, 1975, pp. 62–102. no. 152, p. 102 www.jstor.org
Müller-Christensen, Sigrid, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, and Karen Stolleis. Documenta textilia: Festschrift für Sigrid Müller-Christensen. München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1981. pp. 105-122, cat. no. 36
Shepherd, Dorothy G. “Zandaniji Revisited.” In Documenta textilia: Festschrift für Sigrid Müller-Christensen. Müller-Christensen, Sigrid, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, and Karen Stolleis, editors. München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1981. pp. 105-122, cat. no. 36
Wardwell, Anne E. “Recently Discovered Textiles Woven in the Western Part of Central Asia Before A.D. 1220.” Textile History 20 (2): 175–84. pp. 175-84 doi.org
Watt, James C. Y., Anne E. Wardwell, and Morris Rossabi. When silk was gold: Central Asian and Chinese textiles. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1997. cat. no. 1, pp. 21, 30 libmma.contentdm.oclc.org
Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland; New Haven: Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015. Reproduced: P. 63, fig. 2.25; Mentioned: P. 61
Exhibition history

Year in Review: 1974. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 11-April 6, 1975).

When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian & Chinese Textiles from the Cleveland and Metropolitan Museums of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (organizer) (March 2-May 17, 1998).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1974.98