CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN COPTIC TEXTILE HANGING
CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D.
29 ½ in. (75 cm.) high

Provenance

Ernst Kofler-Truniger (1903-1990) and Marthe Kofler-Truniger (1918-1999), Lucerne.
Rose Choron (1916-2014), New York.
with Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch, London, 2017.

Literature

Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, Zurich, 1964, p. 55, no. 525.
E.D. Maguire, Weavings from Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Egypt: The Rich Life and the Dance, Krannert Art Museum,1999, pp. 94-95, no. B1.

Exhibited

Zurich, Kunsthaus, Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, 7 June-2 August 1964.
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, 1999.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Probably part of a frieze from a much larger hanging. Woven in wool on a linen ground depicting a Bacchic dancer. The figure can be associated to the harvest of grapes due to the sickle in his right hand for trimming bushes and vines, and the dynamic twisting pose reminiscent of grape-treading. His polychrome costume comprises a tunic passing over his left shoulder, with clavus stripe, over a short skirt. The red arc over his head is possibly the remains of a cap. A comparable Coptic textile fragment depicting a dancing figure or putto can be found at the Haifa Museum, inv. no. 6040 (see A. Baginski and A. Tidhar, Textiles from Egypt, 4th-13th Centuries C.E., Tel-Aviv, 1980, no. 45).

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