All Collections
Previous Next
Back to Collection

Fragment of a Silk Robe

TXT 245 | Central Asia or Iran | 7th or 8th century AD

Print Download

Artwork Details

Title: Fragment of a Silk Robe

Date: 7th or 8th century AD

Location: Central Asia or Iran

Materials: silk twill

Dimensions: 59 x 88cm

Accession Number: TXT 245

Other Notes:

The long technical and artistic superiority of Chinese silk over Western textile traditions – Byzantine, Sasanian and early Islamic – stems from the supremacy of silk as a warp thread, and the consequent invention of looms and weaving techniques capable of exploiting this material to the full.

Medallion silks first appear in Sasanian art on the robe of Khusraw (Chosroes) II ‘Parviz’ (r 590– 628) on the rock-relief at Taq-i Bustan in western Iran. They were a product of the drawloom, also a Chinese invention, the greatest advantage of which was to permit the mechanical repetition of patterns, particularly those which were vertically symmetrical. The present silk, with confronted winged horses drinking from a stream and a Tree of Life in beaded medallions, is remarkable in that the medallions are enclosed in a rectangular beaded grid. Where in Sasanian Iran they were woven is not recorded, but the high cost of the thread, largely imported from China, and the skilled workmanship its weaving demanded would have confined their manufacture to court workshops. From Iran and from ancient Soghdiana, medallion textiles found their way westwards to Byzantium and Egypt and, in the 7th and 8th centuries, eastwards back to Tang China and to Japan. Recently our knowledge of them has been much increased by finds from cemeteries in the northern Caucasus, at Khassaut and Moshchevaya Balka, and from the important site of Kala-i Mug in Tajikistan, all with a terminus of circa 725.

Bibliography:

J.M. Rogers, The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection, London 2010, cat.54, p.61.

Related Artworks

Small Flask

JLY 1075
Jaipur, India

Youth in European Dress and Young Woman with Indian Headdress, from a Shahnamah

MSS 1000.1, MSS 1000.2
Isfahan, Iran

Dish

POT 684
Syria

Calligraphic Composition

CAL 154
Ottoman Turkey

Mail and Plate Shirt

MTW 1158
Northern Caucasus
for the Persian or Ottoman market

Two ‘Hands of Fatimah’

JLY 1923
India, possibly Hyderabad (Deccan)

Calligraphic Practice Sheet

CAL 266
Qazvin, Iran

Single Folio from a Four-part Qur’an

KFQ 90
Iran, Isfahan

Carpet with Star Medallions

TXT 213
Ushak, western Anatolia, Turkey

Mosque Lamp

GLS 572
Egypt

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 45
Middle East or North Africa

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 50
Middle East

Five Folios from a Qur’an

KFQ 52
Middle East or North Africa

Two Folios from the ‘Blue Qur’an’

KFQ 53
North Africa or Spain

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 60
probably the Hijaz

Two Bifolios from a Qur’an

KFQ 82
Middle East

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 93
Middle East or North Africa

Single Folio from a Large Qur’an

KFQ 96
probably North Africa

Single Folio from a Qur'an

KFQ 34
Middle East

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 84
Middle East or North Africa

Zoom

Close

Khalili Collections Logo

Share this page