Fragment of Silk Taffeta with “Rose and Nightingale” Motif
Unknown Artist
1700s
Medium
Silk and metallic thread: taffeta, brocaded
Dimensions
38.1 × 40.6 cm · mounted: 48.3 × 50.8 cm
Classification
Textile
Department
Textiles
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Fred R. White
Accession Number
1943.91
About this artwork
A luxurious textile like this would have been used for courtly robes or coats in Safavid Iran. The bird-and-flower motif is known as gul-u-bulbul in Persian, meaning “rose and nightingale.” The motif references the poetic image of a nightingale plaintively singing to an indifferent rose as a metaphor for unrequited human love as well as the soul’s desire for mystical union with the divine.