Ask the Scholar

{
    "localId": "146182",
    "label": "Silk fragment with scrolling vines, grape leaves, grapes, and birds",
    "core": "obj",
    "dtoType": "object"
}

{
    "id": "146182",
    "contentType": "object",
    "title": "Silk fragment with scrolling vines, grape leaves, grapes, and birds",
    "description": "This silk fragment displays a revolutionary new fashion in Italian textile design, influenced by the exotic patterns in silks imported from China, Byzantium, and Islamic countries of the Middle East. Beginning in the 1320s, instead of the static arrangement of motifs stacked one above the other, Italian designers staggered the motifs, creating asymmetry and movement. Even this fragment suggests motion through the arrangement of motifs in a curved lattice layout. However, the actual motifs—the grape leaves and bunches of grapes—remain typically Italian.",
    "date": "1325–50",
    "citation": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.75",
    "rights": "CC0",
    "rightsUri": "CC0",
    "language": "en",
    "wikidata": [
        "Q60755673"
    ],
    "genreSpecific": [
        "Textile"
    ],
    "iiifBase": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.75/1971.75_web.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.75/1971.75_web.jpg",
    "largeImageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.75/1971.75_web.jpg",
    "imageCount": 1,
    "source": "import",
    "dimensionsRaw": "Overall: 24.1 x 25.4 cm (9 1/2 x 10 in.); Mounted: 42.2 x 43.2 cm (16 5/8 x 17 in.)",
    "cul": [
        "Italy"
    ],
    "accession": "1971.75"
}

{
    "tec": "Silk: lampas weave",
    "tombstone": "Silk fragment with scrolling vines, grape leaves, grapes, and birds, 1325–50. Italy. Silk: lampas weave; overall: 24.1 x 25.4 cm (9 1/2 x 10 in.); mounted: 42.2 x 43.2 cm (16 5/8 x 17 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Florence and Charles Abel Oriental Rug Collection by exchange, 1971.75",
    "collection": "Textiles",
    "citations": [
        {
            "citation": "Wardwell, Anne E. \"Flight of the Phoenix: Crosscurrents in Late Thirteenth- to Fourteenth-Century Silk Patterns and Motifs.\" <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 74, no. 1 (1987): 2-35.",
            "page_number": "p. 23, fig. 28",
            "url": "www.jstor.org/stable/25159970."
        },
        {
            "citation": "Wardwell, Anne E. \"Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven with Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries).\" In <em>Islamic Art III, </em>95-173. New York: The Islamic Art Foundation, 1989.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned: p. 95-173; Reproduced: Fig. 69"
        },
        {
            "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. 238-239, fig. 6.26"
        }
    ],
    "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.75",
    "creditline": "Florence and Charles Abel Oriental Rug Collection by exchange",
    "updatedAt": "2026-05-29 07:30:06.230000",
    "imageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.75/1971.75_print.jpg",
    "sourceId": 146182,
    "dept": "Textiles",
    "coll": "Textiles",
    "med": "Silk: lampas weave",
    "thumbnail_url": null,
    "image_url": null
}

{
    "seq": 1,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1971.75/1971.75_web.jpg",
    "mediaId": "c7c39daf8dfc1ee6"
}