Fragment of a Hanging with Two Figures in Arcades

This irregularly shaped fragment preserves the top left corner of what was once a larger hanging: two sides of the border are preserved, as are details from the central field. The central area features two haloed men who face each other beneath an colonnade. The man at left wears a light blue tunic with a belt or tuck, and holds a small bowl and what appears to be a long vessel with a fluted top. The man at right wears tunic covered with a blue mantle, which holds pomegranate-shaped fruit in the drape formed in front of his shoulder; he holds a fish suspended from a chain in his hand. The outer framing border features a series of stepped and circular geometric patterns.

The Dumbarton Oaks fragment is part of a group of textiles now in Cairo, Brooklyn, Riggisberg, and Paris, all sharing features such as prominent borders and figures in jeweled arcades.Brooklyn Museum, 46.128a–b: D. Thompson, Coptic Textiles in the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, 1971), 54–55, no. 22); Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, inv. 1638: S. Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeerraumes aus spätantiker bis frühislamischer Zeit (Riggisberg, 2004), 70–73, no. 16; Cairo, Coptic Museum, inv. 8454: L. Török, After the Pharaohs: Treasures of Coptic Art from Egyptian Collections (Budapest, 2005), no. 64; Paris, Musée de Cluny, Cl. 22068: Lorquin, Les tissus coptes au Musée national du Moyen Âge – Thermes de Cluny: Catalogue des étoffes égyptiennes de lin et de laine de l’antiquité tardive aux premiers siècles de l’Islam (Paris, 1992), 188–90, no. 63; Kanegafuchi Spinning Company, fragment, in K. Akashi, Coptic Textiles from Burying Grounds in Egypt in the Collection of Kanegafuchi Spinning Company (Kyoto, 1955), 1: no. 28. The large size of these pieces suggests that they were used as furnishing textiles. In all the fragments, figures in rows are set in running arcades against deep red backgrounds, with the barest hint of landscape provided by schematic representations of greenery at the figures’ feet. These richly adorned figures wear colorful, luxurious garb evoking the togas typical of Mediterranean-style dress and the fitted tunics worn in the Persianate sphere. The haloed personages hold items evoking abundance and riches, such as baskets, boxes, rings, and fruit, bringing to mind other representations of munificence and “the good life.” Their offerings and gestures hint at possible allegorical meanings, and Sabine Schrenk has suggested that the figures on these textiles represent personifications of the seasons or months of the year.Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeerraumes, 70–73; citing H. Stierlin, Orient byzantin: De Constantinople à l’Arménie et de Syrie en Ethiopie (Paris, 1988), 105, fig. 95. The iconography of the textiles is probably closest to personifications depicted in the sixth-century floor mosaics at the Monastery of Lady Mary in Beth Shean (Scythopolis) where well-dressed figures identified by their Greek inscriptions as months bear emblems of seasonal bounties.For Beth Shean, see S. Hagan, “Time, Memory, and Mosaics at the Monastery of Lady Mary,” Expedition 55, no. 1 (2013): 37–42, available online at http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/55-1/Hagan2.pdf.

The technical qualities of this piece are also revealing when considering its production and likely use. Most of the textiles of this group feature red and undyed warps; the Dumbarton Oaks example is unusual in that it also features warps of a third color, blue. Despite their iconographic and technical similarities, there is great variety in the quality of the weaving among the related fragments. Taken together, these details suggest that the textiles were made in several interrelated workshops, with the varying quality perhaps reflecting workshop traditions or the status of their clientele. Furthermore, while these related textiles all share similar layouts and iconography in their central fields, their edges vary considerably, displaying, for instance, pearl and jewel borders (as in the Riggisberg example) or frames with geometrical patterns (as in Brooklyn). In the case of the Dumbarton Oaks fragment, the border consists of a geometric pattern of stepped and circular designs. This suggests that the textiles were not mass-produced, but rather woven to workshops’ or clients’ specifications.

—Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, May 2019

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th–9th Century, March 14–July 8, 2012.

New York, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, Designing Identity: The Power of Textiles in Late Antiquity, February 25–May 22, 2016.

Washington, DC, The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt, August 31, 2019—January 5, 2020.