Fragment with crowned lions, palmettes, and escutcheons
Unknown Artist
1400s-1500s
Medium
Silk: lampas weave
Dimensions
54.3 × 27.5 cm · mounted: 64.5 × 37.1 cm
Classification
Textile
Department
Textiles
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1944.240
About this artwork
Pairs of yellow lions are framed beneath arches formed by elaborate green leaves in a sumptuous repeated pattern. The city of Granada in southern Spain, where the Alhambra palace stood, continued to be a major center for silk production and commerce through the 1500s. Because the upside-down shields contain no Arabic inscriptions, it was probably made after the fall of the last Muslim sultan to the Christian King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.