Textile fragment with linked diamond-shapes, hexagons, and pseudo-inscription
Details
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Title
Textile fragment with linked diamond-shapes, hexagons, and pseudo-inscription
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Associated place
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Date
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Material and technique
linen, embroidered with brown and pale-green silk, and blue flax or cotton; with stitching in flax
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Material index
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Technique index
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Object type
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Dimensions
23 x 20 cm max. (length x width)
along length/width 32 / 30 threads/cm (thread count)
ground fabric 0.05 cm (thread diameter)
additional fibre, embroidery 0.1 cm (thread diameter) -
No. of items
1
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Credit line
Presented by Professor Percy Newberry, 1941.
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Museum location
Museum department
Eastern Art
Accession no.
EA1984.272
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Catalogue text
Linked Y-shapes create square diamonds and hexagons. This grid design creates rhombic spaces between. The diamonds are outlined in blue and contain a small band with a pseudo-inscription; the hexagons surrounding them are filled with brown and pale green embroidered in slanted counted filling stitches, worked on the diagonal.
The textile has been radiocarbon dated to 1315 +/- 45.In: Barnes, Ruth and Marianne Ellis, ‘The Newberry Collection of Islamic Embroideries’, 4 vols, 2001, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum
The way the pattern has been interpreted on this fragment, compared with the pattern darned band (No.33 [EA1984.463]), shows how the special qualities of certain embroidery stitches were exploited in ways that added considerably to the visual effect. The worker has added a two-dimensional effect to the embroidery by outlining the pattern in double running in dark blue silk, and by alternating the slant and colours of the counted filling stitches. Radiocarbon dating shows that this fragment was made between the late 13th and mid 14th century when both counted and freestyle embroideries were being produced and different stitches were introduced into the repertoire.
In: Ellis, Marianne, Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, in association with Greenville: Curious Works Press, 2001)
Further reading
Barnes, Ruth and Marianne Ellis, ‘The Newberry Collection of Islamic Embroideries’, 4 vols, 2001, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, vol. ii, vol. i
Ellis, Marianne, Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, in association with Greenville: Curious Works Press, 2001), no. 34 on p. 52, p. 51, illus. p. 52
Reference URL
