The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Silk Decorative Tunic Band with a Hunter

700s

Egypt or Syria, Umayyad period

(661–750) or Abbasid period (750–1258)
Silk: complementary weft-faced twill with inner warps (samit)
Overall: 27.3 x 6.7 cm (10 3/4 x 2 5/8 in.); Mounted: 34.9 x 14.3 cm (13 3/4 x 5 5/8 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1939.505
Location: Not on view

Description

This prestigious silk band displays a stylized palmette leaf above a hunter who holds a sword and a shield and pursues a lion and a rabbit. Another fragment with Arabic script indicates Islamic manufacture. Green and ivory silk wefts (horizontal threads) dominate, interlaced by warps (vertical threads) in a diagonal twill weave. A second inner warp does not come to the surface. Such compound structures were woven on large looms with automatic pattern repetition, called drawlooms.
  • ?–1939
    (Adolf Loewi [1888–1977], Los Angeles, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art,
    1939–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Los Angeles County Museum. 2000 Years of Silk Weaving: An Exhibition Sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum in Collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York : E. Weyhe, 1944. no. 11
    Weibel, Adèle Coulin. Two Thousand Years of Textiles; The Figured Textiles of Europe and the Near East. New York: Published for the Detroit Institute of Arts [by] Pantheon Books, 1952. no. 53, p. 91
    Katzenberg, Dena S. Blue Traditions; Indigo Dyed Textiles and Related Cobalt Glazed Ceramics from the 17th Through the 19th Century. [Baltimore]: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1973.
  • Byzantine Gallery 210 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 2, 2001-October 15, 2002).
    Blue Traditions: Indigo Dyed Textiles and Related Glazed Ceramics from the 17th through the 19th Century. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (December 4-January 20, 1974).
    The Indigo Tradition in Textiles. The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (organizer) (December 2, 1973-January 20, 1974).
    Masterpieces of the Weavers' Art. Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, MI (October 7-November 3, 1957).
    2000 Years of Silk Weaving. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 18-April 16, 1944).
  • {{cite web|title=Silk Decorative Tunic Band with a Hunter|url=false|author=|year=700s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1939.505