| Description |
“Square decorative garment insert. The ground of the square is dark blue, with a border of red hooks. The center motif of four birds seated in a fanciful symmetrical plant, is worked in pink, green, and off-white. The weave is tapestry, wool warp, linen and wool weft, 14-16 x 27 [warp : weft per square cm]. All yarn is S-twist. Sixth century. Related examples: Washington D.C. (sic), Textile Museum (Riefstahl 1941, no. 178). Remarks: Essentially, this is a tree-of-life motif in abbreviated form. The motif refers to a tree in the garden of Eden and also to the Tree, that is the cross, of the Crucifixion. (The connection between this cross and the tree of life is sometimes indicated by placing birds in the angles made by the cross arm, as can be seen in another textile in the Rietz Collection, Number 37 [CAS 0389-2380].) Different varieties of birds have particular meanings in Early Christian art. Doves, perhaps the smaller of the two [types of] birds depicted here, signify deliverance and the Holy Ghost. Peacocks, the two larger birds, are symbols of immortality. The tree-of-life motif is fairly common in Coptic textiles, usually rendered in a style related to that of Sassanian silks. [Regarding textiles in this group, DL Carroll # 27-40 (CAS 0389-2378, -2380, -2385, -2386, -2388, -2400, -2404, -2412, -2429, -2430, -2433, -2451, -2452, -2539, -2584, -2585):] By the sixth century two basic types of textile ornaments were used to decorate garments. One, which was in use before the fourth century, was essentially monochrome. Designs in the monochrome class were both non-representational and figurative - the latter included a wide range of subject matter: plant, animal, human, and mythological. The second type is polychrome. Polychrome textiles had been made earlier, but not for use as garments. Extant examples are thought to have been decorative hangings, woven pictures as it were, that are commonly called tapestries. The use of what are essentially miniature tapestries for embellishing clothing is believed to have begun in the sixth century and to have lasted well into the Muslim period.†[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 # 36, pp. 116, 130-131; color plate, p. 72.] |
