Fragment

Accession number	BZ.1933.47
Attribution and Date	Egypt, 12th–13th c.
Measurements	H. (weft) 17.4 cm × W. (warp) 30.5 cm (6 7/8 × 12 in.)
Technique and Material	Double cloth in cotton
Acquisition history	Tano Collection, Cairo; Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss, purchase (through Frances Morris), 1932; Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, 1940.

This fragment consists of a repeated pattern of an eight-sided star enclosed in a square. The pattern is executed in light blue against a beige background, with squares of solid color at the points where the corners of the motifs converge.

This small piece is woven in a technique known as “double cloth,” which in effect binds together two separately made cloths. The technique is seen in Seljuq-period textiles dating from roughly eleventh- and twelfth-century Iran, where double cloths could be executed also in silk.L. W. Mackie, Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th–21st Century (Cleveland, 2015), 142–47. In Egypt, double cloth was a phenomenon of the Mamluk period, possibly due to the movement of craftsman from eastern Islamic lands.Ibid., 251–53. It is difficult to date or attribute this fragment, though the provenance through the Tano galleries, which were based in Cairo, suggests an Egyptian origin.

—Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, May 2019

Notes

Accession number	BZ.1933.47
Attribution and Date	Egypt, 12th–13th c.
Measurements	H. (weft) 17.4 cm × W. (warp) 30.5 cm (6 7/8 × 12 in.)
Technique and Material	Double cloth in cotton
Acquisition history	Tano Collection, Cairo; Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss, purchase (through Frances Morris), 1932; Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, 1940.

Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Ornament: Fragments of Byzantine Fashion, September 10, 2019—January 5, 2020.

Accession number	BZ.1933.47
Attribution and Date	Egypt, 12th–13th c.
Measurements	H. (weft) 17.4 cm × W. (warp) 30.5 cm (6 7/8 × 12 in.)
Technique and Material	Double cloth in cotton
Acquisition history	Tano Collection, Cairo; Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss, purchase (through Frances Morris), 1932; Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, 1940.

F. Morris, “Catalogue of Textile Fabrics, The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection” (unpublished catalogue, Washington, DC, 1940), 385.

D. Thompson, “Catalogue of Textiles in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection” (unpublished catalogue, Washington, DC, 1976), no. 183.

D. Thompson, “Cotton Double Cloths and Embroidered and Brocaded Linen Fabrics from Tenth to Fourteenth Century Egypt: Their Relation to Traditional Coptic and Contemporary Islamic Style,” BullCIETA 61/62 (1985): fig. 1.

Accession number	BZ.1933.47
Attribution and Date	Egypt, 12th–13th c.
Measurements	H. (weft) 17.4 cm × W. (warp) 30.5 cm (6 7/8 × 12 in.)
Technique and Material	Double cloth in cotton
Acquisition history	Tano Collection, Cairo; Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss, purchase (through Frances Morris), 1932; Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, 1940.