The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 26, 2024

Album of Textile Samples

Album of Textile Samples

700s
(618–907) or Japan, Nara period (710–794)
Overall: 42.5 x 46 x 6 cm (16 3/4 x 18 1/8 x 2 3/8 in.)
Location: not on view

Description

The album contains an important collection of early East Asian textiles. There are fifty-five fragments in the album representing forty-five different textiles. The fragments vary in size from the smallest, about an inch square, to the largest, which is fifteen inches square. With three exceptions, the pieces are of silk.

The techniques represented include plain cloth and gauzes, either monochrome or with printed decoration, and damask-like weaves with a ground in plain cloth and a pattern in twill and one example with the ground in weft twill and the pattern in warp twill. The compound weaves include one example of a compound warp-face cloth, a technique that had all but died out after Han times, and a number of compound twills with a variety of elaborate decorative motifs, which are among the most important and interesting in the collection. There are one embroidery and one fragment of silk tapestry.
  • said to have come from the Shōsōin and Hōryūji, Nara, Japan
    ?–1954
    (Howard Hollis and Co., Cleveland, OH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1954–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Shepherd, Dorothy G. "An Album of Textiles from the Shōsōin and Hōryūji." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 6 (1955): 124–127. Mentioned: pp. 124–127; Reproduced: pp. 126–127 www.jstor.org
  • Asian Autumn: Masterpieces from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17, 1991-January 5, 1992).
  • {{cite web|title=Album of Textile Samples|url=false|author=|year=700s|access-date=26 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1954.70