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Lot Essay
This panel is likely to have come from a robe worn by a Seljuk or Ilkhanid courtier, for whom luxurious silk textiles were important indicators of wealth and status. The nomadic nature of Central Asian tribesmen meant that they would often wear their wealth. The group of textiles to which this closely relates are characterised by the use of repeating roundels which enclose confronted or addorsed animals. They are thought to have been made throughout Asia - from China to Byzantium.
A complete example of such a robe is currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from the Sarikhani Collection (I.TXT.1021). Visually, the confronted falcons draw on an established Seljuk aesthetic, which in turn drew on pre-Islamic visual forms inherited from the Sogdians and the Sassanians. Mirrored animals can also be seen on Seljuk mirrors (such as one in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul, 2972, published in David J Roxburgh, Turks, London, 2005, no.74, p.125) and ceramic star tiles (David J Roxburgh, op cit., no. 64, p. 119). Other fragments from the same original textile have sold in these Rooms 6 October 2009, lot 25 and 13 April 2010, lot 24.
A complete example of such a robe is currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from the Sarikhani Collection (I.TXT.1021). Visually, the confronted falcons draw on an established Seljuk aesthetic, which in turn drew on pre-Islamic visual forms inherited from the Sogdians and the Sassanians. Mirrored animals can also be seen on Seljuk mirrors (such as one in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul, 2972, published in David J Roxburgh, Turks, London, 2005, no.74, p.125) and ceramic star tiles (David J Roxburgh, op cit., no. 64, p. 119). Other fragments from the same original textile have sold in these Rooms 6 October 2009, lot 25 and 13 April 2010, lot 24.