Tiraz with gold, probably from a wide sleeve
Unknown Artist
1013–1020
Medium
plain weave with inwoven tapestry weave: linen, silk, and gold filé
Dimensions
23.5 × 62.3 cm
Classification
Textile
Department
Textiles
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1950.549
About this artwork
This textile with expensive gold foil is among the rarest surviving examples among thousands of medieval textiles with historic or generic inscriptions in Arabic, known as tiraz. Tiraz were "emblems of dignity," the prerogative of sovereigns and those they wished to honor. This inscription is masterful. The tall letters are woven with silk thread on only two warps in slit-tapestry weave while the ground was woven with pure gold foil wrapped around a silk core that was not beaten in—to show off i...