The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 3, 2022

Ikat tiraz

900s

This object has related works. See Ikat tiraz

Yemen, San'a, Reign of Rassid Imams

Cotton and gold leaf: resist-dyed warp (ikat); plain weave with inscription

Overall: 41.7 x 30 cm (16 7/16 x 11 13/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1950.524

Location

not on view

Description

The "flame" pattern was dyed on the vertical warp threads before weaving began by tightly binding them to resist dye penetration, and repeated for each color. The process and fabric are called ikat, a Malaysian word which may have originated in South Arabia. Yemeni ikats with historical Arabic inscriptions from the 10th century are among the oldest known. This text, written in kufic script with gold paint outlined in black, is so damaged that it cannot be read.

Inscriptions

Inscription

an elaborate Kufic inscription is painted; it has many braided letters and is so damaged that it cannot be read.

Provenance
?–1950
(Dr. Emil Delmar [1876–1959], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1950–
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Etienne Combe, Jean Sauvaget, and Gaston Wiet. Répertoire chronologique d'épigraphie arabe. Le Caire: Impr. de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1931. vol. IV, p. 174, no. 1544
Wiet, Gaston. 1935. “Tissus Et Tapisseries Du Musée Arabe Du Caire.” Syria 16 (3): 278–290. p. 287
Lamm, C. J. Cotton in Mediaeval Textiles of the Near East. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1937. p. 146
Textile Museum (Washington, D.C.), and Ernst Kühnel. Catalogue of Dated Tiraz Fabrics: Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid. Washington: National Pub. Co, 1952. p. 90
Golombek, Lisa and Veronica Gervers. "Tiraz Fabrics in the Royal Ontario Museum." In Burnham, Harold B., and Veronika Gervers. Studies in Textile History: In Memory of Harold B. Burnham. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1977. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 92–93, fig. 3
Edwards, Holly. Patterns and Precision, the Arts and Sciences of Islam. [Washington, D.C.]: National Committee to Honor the Fourteenth Centennial of Islam, 1982. p. 54, no. 186
Cornu, Georgette, Odile Valansot, and Hélène Meyer. Tissus islamiques de la collection Pfister. Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1992. p. 65
Balfour-Paul, Jenny. "Islamic Art, VI, 2(ii)(d), Fabrics, before c. 1250: Spain and North Africa, Yemen." In Turner, J. S. The Dictionary of Art. New York: Grove, 1996. p. 438
Baginski, Alisa and Orit Shamir. “The Earliest Ikat.” HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles. [London] Issue 95, November 1997. pp. 86–87
Bier, Carol. "A Calligrapher's Art: Inscribed Cotton Ikat from Yemen" (2001) works.bepress.com
Bier, Carol. “Patterns in Time and Space: Technologies of Transfer and the Cultural Transmission of Mathematical Knowledge Across the Indian Ocean.” Ars Orientalis 34 (2004). p. 172-94
Bier, Carol. "Inscribed Cotton Ikat from Yemen in the Tenth Century CE." in International Shibori Symposium, Feng Zhao, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, and Edith Cheung. Resist Dye on the Silk Road: Shibori, Clamp Resist and Ikat. Hangzhou: China National Silk Museum, 2014. pp. 32–40 works.bepress.com
Weinstein, Laura, and Emine Fetvacı. Ink, Silk & Gold: Islamic Art from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 2015. p. 36, no.10
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. pp. 123, 215. Similar object reproduced: p. 122
Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1950.524