Pair of Boots
Unknown Artist
1000–1125
Medium
Silk: compound twill; silk and gold: tapestry; silk: tabby, gauze, and batting; leather
Dimensions
34.9 × 25 cm
Classification
Garment
Department
Textiles
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1992.349.1
About this artwork
The fabric and tailoring of garments have always defined social status. For these boots, different outer fabrics were used: a patterned silk for the leg portion, and tapestry (kesi) for the foot. Since both were considered luxury fabrics, they were pieced together from remnants too precious to discard. Consequently, the silk pattern was not used in relation to the form of the boot, as seen in some other imperial boots. By contrast, these boots would have been made for a court official, not a mem...