.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
INSCRIPTIONS:
The inscription in the roundels of the textile is a mirrored repetition of bi'l-yumn wa'l-dawla 'with good fortune and wealth'
This fragment is likely to have come from a gown worn by Seljuk and Ilkhanid courtiers, for whom luxurious silk textiles were important indicators of wealth and status. 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 be seen on Seljuk mirrors (such as one in the Türk ve Islam Eserleri Müzesi, 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). Further textile fragments which may have come from the same garment were sold in these rooms 23 October 2007, lot 134; 6 October 2009, lot 25; and 13 April 2010, lot 24.
The inscription in the roundels of the textile is a mirrored repetition of bi'l-yumn wa'l-dawla 'with good fortune and wealth'
This fragment is likely to have come from a gown worn by Seljuk and Ilkhanid courtiers, for whom luxurious silk textiles were important indicators of wealth and status. 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 be seen on Seljuk mirrors (such as one in the Türk ve Islam Eserleri Müzesi, 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). Further textile fragments which may have come from the same garment were sold in these rooms 23 October 2007, lot 134; 6 October 2009, lot 25; and 13 April 2010, lot 24.