About this artwork
These textiles feature leafy vines clasped by crowns encircling floral palmettes to create a continuous network. Notably, both the crowns and the palmettes reverse orientation from one row to the next, ensuring that the fabric would never appear upside-down, whether it was used as a wall covering, furniture upholstery, or even a garment.
Italian merchants bought Iranian raw silk in Bursa, at the western edge of the ancient trade route known as the Silk Road (in present-day Turkey). They sold the resulting goods to the Ottoman court in Istanbul. During the 1500s and 1600s, Ottoman sultans were avid consumers of luxury textiles from the Italian peninsula, buying more than Western European monarchs and the Roman Catholic Church.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Textiles
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Title
- Three Lengths of Woven Silk
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Place
- Italy (Object made in)
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Date
- Made 1575–1625
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Medium
- Silk, plain weave with plain interlacings of secondary binding warps and supplementary patterning wefts
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Dimensions
- a: 171.1 × 114 cm (67 3/8 × 44 7/8 in.); b: 170.9 × 61.5 cm (67 3/4 × 24 1/4 in.); c: 171.1 × 53.5 cm (67 3/8 × 21 1/8 in.); Repeat: 33.3 × 17.1 cm (13 × 6 3/4 in.)
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Credit Line
- Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
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Reference Number
- 1937.1215a-c
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/26215/manifest.json
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
