The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Fragment with Octagons and Four-Pointed Stars

1521–1955 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)

Iran ?, in the style of the Buyid period

(945–1055)
Silk: lampas weave
Overall: 26.5 x 100.5 cm (10 7/16 x 39 9/16 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1982.281
Location: Not on view

Description

The design consists of aligned large-scale octagons and four-pointed star-shaped interspaces filled with leafy scrolls. Each octagon encloses pairs of regardant gazelles and nonregardant rabbits in mirror image against a foliate background, patterned in white on a light pinkish-tan ground.
  • originally reported to have come from Bibi Shahr Banu, necropolis at Rayy, Iran
    Mme. Paul [Marguerite] Mallon [d. 1977], Paris, France
    ?-1982
    (Goumaronart, Inc., Paris, France, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1982-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Blair, Sheila S., Jonathan M. Bloom, and Anne E. Wardwell. "Reevaluating the Date of the "Buyid" Silks by Epigraphic and Radiocarbon Analysis." Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 1-41. Reproduced: p. 32; Mentioned: p. 15 www.jstor.org
  • {{cite web|title=Fragment with Octagons and Four-Pointed Stars|url=false|author=|year=1521–1955 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1982.281