| Description |
“Oval garment ornament. The ornament has a wide, outer border with dark pink ground and a linear rinceau worked in linen, now beige in color, but originally white. In a smaller oval in the center is a stylized flower in a wreath of multicolored leaves, dark pink, dull yellow, and two shades of green. The ground is beige. The weave is tapestry with linen warp, wool and linen weft, 9 x 50 [warp : weft per square cm]. The work is exceptionally fine with short weft floats on the back. All yarn is S-twist. Tenth century. Remarks: Multicolored leaves arranged in bands or garlands form a common motif in architectural mosaics. An early example appears in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna, Italy, built in the fifth century. [This] textile version is more rigid and is certainly later in date. [Regarding textiles in this group, DL Carroll # 41-72 (CAS 0389-2382, -2384, -2389, -2390, -2391, -2392, -2393, -2396, -2399, -2401, -2405, -2409, -2410, -2411, -2414, -2415, -2416, -2417, -2419, -2420, -2422, -2423, -2424, -2427, -2434, -2435, -2436, -2453, -2454, -2457, -2579, -2580, -2581, -2582, -2599):] After the Arab conquest in the mid-seventh century, Coptic textile design changed its character, moving ever more distant from its classical Roman and Greek sources. In part, this was a reaction against Byzantine culture, associated in the Coptic mind with oppression. Contributing to the change may have been Islamic prohibitions against depicting human and animal figures. Such figures when they appear in Coptic textiles of the later periods become increasingly abstract to the point of being virtually unrecognizable.†[From Looms and Textiles of the Copts by Diane Lee Carroll (San Francisco, CA: Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, No. 11, 1988); Catalog # 70, pp. 136, 180-181.] |
