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Source Description
Iranian luxury textiles of the 16th and 17th centuries are renowned for representing human figures and for creating the most colorful velvets ever woven. Here, a dragon slayer dressed in 16th-century court attire is poised to hurl a boulder at a snarling dragon in a landscape with blossoming fruit trees and perched fowl. Even with faded silk pile this velvet contains many nuanced tones. As many as 12 colors of velvet pile were achieved by weavers who skillfully replaced colored pile warp during weaving.<br><br>This velvet medallion decorated the interior of an imperial tent, possibly donated by Shah Tahmasp to an Ottoman Turkish sultan. Captured after the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, the medallion was claimed as war booty by the European commander-in-chief Prince Sanguszko of Poland by whose name this and other panels are known.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
125977
label
Tent panel of a dragon slayer
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
125977
contentType
object
title
Tent panel of a dragon slayer
description
Iranian luxury textiles of the 16th and 17th centuries are renowned for representing human figures and for creating the most colorful velvets ever woven. Here, a dragon slayer dressed in 16th-century court attire is poised to hurl a boulder at a snarling dragon in a landscape with blossoming fruit trees and perched fowl. Even with faded silk pile this velvet contains many nuanced tones. As many as 12 colors of velvet pile were achieved by weavers who skillfully replaced colored pile warp during weaving.<br><br>This velvet medallion decorated the interior of an imperial tent, possibly donated by Shah Tahmasp to an Ottoman Turkish sultan. Captured after the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, the medallion was claimed as war booty by the European commander-in-chief Prince Sanguszko of Poland by whose name this and other panels are known.
date
1550–99
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q79905132
genreSpecific
Velvet
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Overall: 71.1 x 55.6 cm (28 x 21 7/8 in.); Mounted: 81.3 x 66 cm (32 x 26 in.)
cul
Iran, Yazd[?], reign of Shah Tahmasp, Safavid period (1501-1736)
accession
1948.205
Source extras
tec
velvet, cut, voided, brocaded, and pile-warp substitution: silk and gilt-metal strips
tombstone
Tent panel of a dragon slayer, 1550–99. Iran, Yazd[?], reign of Shah Tahmasp, Safavid period (1501-1736). Velvet, cut, voided, brocaded, and pile-warp substitution: silk and gilt-metal strips; overall: 71.1 x 55.6 cm (28 x 21 7/8 in.); mounted: 81.3 x 66 cm (32 x 26 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1948.205
collection
T - Islamic
didYouKnow
Originally the ivory ground was covered with costly gilt-metal strips, which may have been removed for their monetary value.
citations
citation
Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain), and Arnold Talbot Wilson. <em>Persian art: an illustrated souvenir of the exhibition of Persian art at Burlington house, London, 1931</em>. [London]: Printed for the Executive Committee of the exhibition by Hudson & Kearns Ltd, 1931.
page_number
p. 75, no. 182
citation
Pope, Arthur Upham, Phyllis Ackerman, and Theodore Bestermann. <em>A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present</em>. London: Oxford University Press, 1938.
page_number
Mentioned and Reproduced: pl. 1024
citation
Los Angeles County Museum. <em>2000 Years of Silk Weaving: An Exhibition Sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum in Collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts</em>. New York: E. Weyhe, 1944.
page_number
Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 33, no. 245, pl. 59
citation
Shepherd, Dorothy G. "A Persian Velvet of the Shāh Ṭahmāsp Period." <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 36, no. 4 (1949): 46-53.
page_number
p. 46-53
url
www.jstor.org/stable/25141546.
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook.</em> Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
page_number
Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 734
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 216
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 216
citation
Bowie, Theodore Robert.<em> Islamic Art Across the World; An Exhibition</em>. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Art Museum, 1970.
page_number
no. 325
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 273
citation
Ball, Victoria Kloss. <em>Architecture and Interior Desig</em>n. New York: Wiley, 1980.
page_number
p. 261, fig. 6.49
citation
Mackie, Louise W. <em>Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century</em>. Cleveland; New Haven: Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: P. 354-355, fig. 9.13
citation
Munroe, Nazanin Hedayat. “The Patterns of Poetry.”<em> HALI; the international journal of Oriental carpets and textiles</em>. Issue 224, Summer 2025.
page_number
p. 102-109.
creditline
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 06:31:05.317000
sourceId
125977
dept
Textiles
coll
T - Islamic
med
velvet, cut, voided, brocaded, and pile-warp substitution: silk and gilt-metal strips
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
6213ef5edf7138e3