The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

Royal Round Tent made for Muhammad Shah (wall panel with three design units)

Royal Round Tent made for Muhammad Shah (wall panel with three design units)

1834–48
(1779-1925)
Wool with silk embroidery (chain stitch), rope, cotton, leather, tape; Rasht work
Overall: 167.6 x 286.4 cm (66 x 112 3/4 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2014.388.4
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Rasht work is named after the city on the Caspian Sea in present-day Iran, which was a major silk trade center with numerous textile workshops.

Description

Royal tents were potent symbols of authority, wealth, and power throughout the greater Middle East. Rulers owned thousands of tents. They were used for shelter, shade, and innumerable functions in tent compounds that were essential for imperial ceremonies, travel, and military campaigns. Distinguished by size with elaborately decorated interior walls and ceilings, tents could be as large as castles. Opulent tents were also presented as imperial gifts.

Tents are only known through documents before 1600. For example, in Baghdad in 809, Caliph Harun al-Rashid owned 4,000 ceremonial tents and 150,000 camping tents that were stored in the imperial Abbasid treasury. An astonishing variety and quantity of tents were housed in the royal Fatimid tent storeroom in Cairo in 1068-69, including "military tents, fortress tents, and castle tents, manufactured of . . . gold-brocaded stuff embroidered with designs of elephants, wild beasts, horses, peacocks, birds."

Since 1600, Ottoman Turkish tents with elaborate floral decoration have been preserved in Istanbul in the Topkapi Palace Museum and Military Museum, and in European collections as war booty, primarily from the Ottoman Turks' attempt to conquer Vienna in 1683. These tents are not done in the Rasht technique, but rather are applique.

In contrast, royal tents from Iran are extremely rare. This spectacular ceremonial tent is embroidered with the name of its owner, Muhammad Shah, who ruled Iran from 1834 to 1848 during the Qajar dynasty. The radiant jewellike interior features exuberant flora, blossoming vines, and robust birds made with colored wool embellished with silk-thread embroidery.
  • Customized storage for a very large tent
    In addition to thinking about condition issues and treating textiles before they are placed on display in the galleries, the textile conservator must also think about their storage because textiles are light-sensitive and spend much of their lives in storage. When the tent was deinstalled in 2015, we vacuumed it front and back before storing it. The wall panels were rolled on separate padded archival tubes, covered in undyed cotton muslin before being placed in storage.

    Storage of the tent roof was a particular challenge. The CMA cabinetmakers constructed a sealed wood box measuring 79 cm (31 in.) H x 310 cm (122 in.) W x 157 cm (62 in.) D to store both the tent roof and the mount armature used to erect the tent. That armature is packed at the bottom of the box. A tray that contains the tent roof fits on top of the mount armature hardware; the boss at the apex of the tent roof is supported at one end of the box. Specialized lift equipment is needed to move the box; needless to say, it is heavy as well as large.
  • by early 1980s-1991?
    Mehdi Mahboubian [1921-2005], Oxfordshire, UK
    April 24, 1991
    (Sotheby's, London, sale 24 April 1991)
    after 1991
    Private Collection, consigned to Francesca Galloway, Ltd.
    ?-2014
    (Francesca Galloway, Ltd., London, UK, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2014-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • "The Shahs' Tents" with articles by Toby Falk "Royalty in the Field," Jennifer Wearden "Rasht Textiles," and Ian Bennet "A Qajar Masterpiece." HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles 59 (October 1991), pp.118-123. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 118-123
    Sotheby's London. European and Oriental Rugs, Carpets and Textiles. 24 April 1991 sale.
    Baker, Patricia L. Islamic Textiles. 1995. p. 138-39
    Atasoy, Nurhan. Otağ-ı Hümayun: Ottoman imperial tent complex. İstanbul: Aygaz, 2000.
    Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Reproduced: pp. 392-393
    "The Shah's Tent." HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles 185 (Autumn 2015): 94-95. Reproduced: figs. 1-4, pp. 94-95
  • Muhammad Shah's Royal Persian Tent. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 13, 2015-August 23, 2016).
  • {{cite web|title=Royal Round Tent made for Muhammad Shah (wall panel with three design units)|url=false|author=|year=1834–48|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2014.388.4