A Timurid silk brocade textile, Iran or Central Asia,

with a repeating design of cranes, their legs extended, against a pattern of clouds forming a teardrop shape, the motifs approximately 6.5 by 6.5cm, the tabby ground in dark blue-green silk, the pattern wefts, (of which there are fourteen rows), of floss silk in ivory, golden yellow and walnut are bound in 'Z' twill on the front, and float unbound on the back; both selvedges are preserved; they vary in width, one being 3mm, and the other 6mm wide, are self-coloured and are reinforced by bundles of silk warps; the repeat is an unusually complicated one, with the rows of cranes in groups of three, alternating to right, left and right, with the next set of three rows mirror imaged on the hoizontal axis

Spink and Son, London

We are grateful for Dr. Marian Wenzel's extensive note on this piece which discusses in depth the relationship between this textile and parallels in Chinese textiles, and surviving Islamic textiles and their depictions in both Western and Middle Eastern art.  The transcript of this note appears below.

A TIMURID SILK  WITH A PATTERN OF FLYING CRANES

Iran or Central Asia, 1350-1425

Report by Marian Wenzel, BSc, PhD, FSA

This superb panel – of blue-green silk with a pattern of staggered rows of golden-yellow cranes set against clouds – is unique. It has been preserved for some centuries in Tibet, yet it is the only example to have come to light, to the best of my knowledge, of a type of textile which is depicted – as clothing – in miniatures painted in Central Asia and Iran in the late 14^th century and the 15^th, that is during the Timurid period. The silk can, it seems to me, be reasonably well-dated both by means of representation of its type in such Islamic manuscripts, and because some of its design characteristics can be traces as features of the 'international style' seen in orientalising textiles illustrated in Western paintings throughout the same era (see the numerous illustrations in this report).

Although the chinoiserie aspect of the motif of a crane placed against clouds – as it indeed appears on this silk – is beyond doubt the precise arrangement of the motif on its background seen here is not really characteristic of Chinese silks. The repeated cranes, staggered and in rows, here change both direction and orientation from row to row. This approach is rather clearly different from the Chinese compositional approach to reversed-direction patterning in dealing with such design-motifs, which tends to be centrifugal – the motifs revolve around a central hub – and it is also different from the characteristically less inventive Western pattern-arrangement (except in those few cases where Western textiles copy an Islamic model – for instance, von Wilckent 1991, p. 157b). The piece is, therefore, most happily attributed to Iran or Central Asia, where there was a longstanding tradition – which pre-dated the arrival of the Mongols in the 13^th century and continued well beyond it – or arranging both script and imagery in this same way.

Description

The textile is a panel of dark blue-green silk brocade, 140cm (c.53ins) long, and 60cm (c.24ins) wide, though naturally there are some small deviations in the exact dimensions from point to point – a matter of a few millimetres. It has a tabby ground, and the pattern wefts, of which there are fourteen rows, are bound in 'Z' twill on the front, and float unbound on the back. Both selvedges are preserved; they vary in width, one being 3mm, and the other 6mm wide, are self-coloured, and are reinforced by bundles of silk warp. The textile was seemingly preserved for a long time as a component of something else, to which it was sewn, perhaps the back of a tangka; as a result, there are small sewing holds round its edges at certain points.

The fourteen rows of pattern alternate types: each consists of either six repeats of the principal design-motif, or of five repeats and two halves of a motif, the halves being interrupted at one selvedge rather off-centre of the vertical axis, and at the other selvedge roughly on the vertical axis. This off-centre interruption of a motif at the selvedge is, according to Anne Wardwell, a fairly general characteristic of Eastern/Islamic textiles, in contrast to Italian Gothic silks which always divide a motif at the selvedge on its central axis (Wardwell 1989, pp.96,107). The fact that here, one selvedge (the one in which the bulb of the teardrop-shaped lozenge appears) splits the motif closer to its vertical axis than does the other selvedge, is certainly an inconsistency which can be traced in Islamic silk weaving as far back as the Abbasid period (Wardwell 1989, p.107).

The pattern units are 6.5cm high and 6.5cm wide. There is 2cm between each unit and the next in the same row, and 3cm between the rows. All the silk is floss, without strongly evident twist. The warp and ground weft threads are, as already noted, a rich blue-green. The four colours used for the pattern wefts are subtle warm tones, unfaded in the main; they consist of a honey-coloured golden beige, a deeper, apricot beige, a pale cream, and a dark brown. There are no metal threads or gilded membranes used in the weaving of the piece.

Each of the repeat motifs consists of a flying crane – with outstretched wings and dangling legs – looking back in the direction from whence it came, its head and beak thus being shown over a strongly curved neck , up the centre of which is a stripe. The feathers of the wings are indicated in a slightly darker golden tone than the base colour of the bird, and the legs are shadowed along their length in a somewhat darker tone on one side only, thus presenting some impression of naturalism. The clouds which form the teardrop-shaped lozenges behind each crane are also to some degree naturalistic, and are not formed into the standard, string-like cloud bands for which Ming art, for instance, is so well known. The base tips of the lozenges formed by the clouds are set at the bottoms of the cranes' legs, and are therefore at a tilt, which is repeated by the placing of each lozenge within its row. As already mentioned, half of these lozenges are intersected by the selvedges, so that along one side of the textile, only the tips appear, whilst along the other, only the bulbs appear.

The direction in which the cranes fly alternates from row to row (either to the right or to the left, that is), and the orientation (upside-down or rightside-up) changes every third row. This means there is a very complex rhythm to the way the lozenges relate to each other. This can easily be seen by reading a line of lozenges not across, but from upper right to lower left, or the obverse, or by examining the direction of the lozenges and their neighbours, as they are cut by one of the long sides. Thus, what at first glance appears a simple repeat arrangement is really not so at all, and does not even resemble the familiar arrangement of repeats seen, for instance, on later Safavid textiles, and their 17^th-century European counterparts wherein rows of similar flowersprays simply alternate the direction in which they face from row to row.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS SILK IN TEXTILE-HISTORY

Background

Both Islamic and Western painted representations of textiles of this type exist, to give a reasonable indication of its date, and also to count against attributing the silk to Chine – which has been an obvious first thought for several people who have seen it – although of course, there has to be possibility that it might have been made in China for Timurid patrons, and in accordance with Timurid taste. Decorative schemes of birds set against a broad background of clouds were utilized on Yuan silks of the 13^th century, and were brought into the Islamic sphere even before the Mongols. However, the 'powdered' approach of the teardrop-shaped cloud lozenges of this example is found in the Mamluk, Ottoman and Timurid spheres, and the design-emphasis on a single bird placed within a lozenge-form pattern-arrangement without any hard outline, and on a cool-coloured ground suggesting the night sky, is both Timurid and Eastern Mediterranean; this aesthetic is found in textiles represented in mid-14^th to mid-15^th century Italian paintings, and also in Syrian glasswares (the famous Cavour vase is an example) at much the same time; indeed, the glass examples were probably made under the influence of Timurid silks.

THE PARALLELS

1) CHINESE TEXTILES:

The motif of a crane set against a cluster of clouds might well appear at first glance to be Chinese, and were it not for the fact that better parallels for this piece can be found among the many Iranian and European painting of the later 14^th and early 15^th centuries (in fact the period of the Ming Dynasty, AD 1669-1644), a time when quite different sorts of motif assumed popularity in Chinese art: see Hsio-Yen Shin 1977, pp. 324.325), one would indeed probably wish to assign it to the Chinese production of the 13^th century (the Southern Song Dynasty – AD 1127-1280 – and the Yuan Dynasty – AD 1281 1368) when animals or birds, usually in pairs or isolated against a background of some other design, were represented on Chinese silks, some of which were certainly exported. Any such attribution would have been on the basis of rather general stylistic similarities, rather than because there are strikingly convincing parallels.

To be more specific, excavations in China of graves from the period of the Southern Song dynasty have produced textiles whose designs show such things as geese flying above waves, on a blue ground; addorsed birds flanking floral motif and enclosed roundels patterned in rhoms and hexagons; confronting sheep and garuda birds; and (on a sapphire blue tabby) pairs of confronting birds and confroning deer, with a zig-zag border band depicting more confronting birds (see Hsio-Yen Shih 1977, p. 322). Excavation of Yuan Dynasty graves have produced a silk with dragons and phoenix on a geometric ground, and another with prunus and bamboo vegetation, a chrysanthemum, and a magpie resting on a branch (see Hsio-Yen Shih 1977, p. 323) A red Chinese twill damask, which was placed in a reliquary in the Cathedral at Abo, Finland, at the end of the 13^th century, has rows of tortoises alternating with rows of phoenixes, in a staggered arrangement. Rows of both beasts are presented against the same uniform background of loosely arranged clouds (see illustration, from Geijer 1979, p. 115, VII, fig 5).

Obviously then, 13^th-century Chinese textiles had some elements in common with this present one, but tended to use designs with paired, confronting birds rather than with single birds, and these within a geometric framework; or single birds and beasts set in 'naturalistic' backgrounds, or against an all-over pattern, whether purely geometric or of clouds, Missing from this Chinese repertoire, it seems, are the singular alignments, and the reduction of the naturalistic background to a sequin-like unbordered lozenge, seen in the present textile.

2) SURVIVING ISLAMIC TEXTILES AND LITERARY REFERENCES:

a) Birds, animals and epigraphic bands in rows, etc.

Some Islamic-period Iranian textiles featuring birds and animals do survive from before the mid-13^th century advent of the Mongols, when, of course, new chinoiserie borrowings occurred – including occasional cranes and ornamental clouds. Also, they do, in some instances, have the singular motif-alignments which appear on this present piece. In them, rows of birds or animals, and also inscription bands, are sometimes one side up, and sometimes the other (see illustrations). However, at the same time these Islamic textiles accord with the contemporary descriptions of Chinese silks of the period in presenting the animals and birds either in tight rows or lattices, or against an all-over textured ground. The prevalent mirror-image inversion of rows are sometimes placed within roundels, when there appears to be an attempt to try to imitate the traditional Chinese centrifugal arrangement (see Lorenz 1972, p. 68, fig. 27), but in fact these roundel-compositions are quite different in feeling from the Chinese examples, since the beasts and birds are held rigidly above each other in horizontal rows, rather than spinning in a circle (I illustrate two versions: a 12^th-13^th century Iranian example from the Textile Museum, Washington, and a 13^th century example from the Cleveland Museum, Ohio: from Schmidt 1958, pp. 116,117).

b) The mirror-image effect applied to sequences of objects

 

By the 14^th century, to judge from an Iranian textile in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the tipped, teardrop-shaped lozenge of the present textile has emerged as a leaf, containing script, with a bird with outspread wings alongside, both elements being presented within rigid horizontal bands above and below (Schmidt 1958, p. 136, no.102). This is indeed a well-established early 14^th century Iranian textile type. One or more birds – often with wings outspread, or confronting each other in pairs – are placed alongside one or more lozenges which contain contrasting, often geometric or calligraphic, design elements; the birds thus form part of the naturalistic material against which the lozenges are reserved (Wardwell 1989, p.158, figs 34-37; p. 159, fig. 38; p. 161, fig. 45).

 

One textile woven in this style is the most securely dated Ilkhanid silk to survive; it carries the tiraz of the Ilkhan ruler Abu-Sa'id and thus dates from between 1319 and 1335; The piece was used as a burial garment  for Rudolf IV of Hapsburg, and can now be seen in the Erzbischöfliches Dom- und Diozesanmuseum in Vienna. Anne Wardwell has rightly observed that a version of this formula was already in existence on Khorasan metalwork of pre-Mongol date; there the lozenges consisted of embossed studs protruding out of surrounding flat ornamentation, which regularly included birds (Wardwell 1989, p. 161, fig. 46; see illustrations). On this Ilkhanid textile, the above-mentioned formula appears in a central band, whilst the bands that flank it contain animals which appear in mirror-image inversions, rather as seen with the rows of cranes on the present textile. These inversions we can now recognize as an Ilkhanid trait, doubtless adopted from pre-Mongol Iranian silks.

 

Towards the middle of the 14^th century, another development occurred in Iranian textile design. Animals and birds were still depicted, but they migrated from the background against which the teardrop-shaped lozenges were set, and entered the lozenges themselves. These new lozenges containing zoomorphic forms were then presented against a sort of uniform background of plant forms of the type which had previously mingled with the creatures, as indeed they had elsewhere at the same time (Wardwell 1989, p. 147, fig. 1,1a). So, at this date, the birds have been transferred to lozenges but two other important aspects of the present design seem not yet to have appeared. Firstly, the background to the lozenges has not yet been cleared of its overall pattern to become the blue or green sky-like ground upon which the bird-lozenges could appear almost as spangles of light, or stars (that effect so well depicted in Timurid paintings of people wearing such silks). Secondly, the lozenges themselves have not yet lost their edging bands; soon they will be formed without edging, being simply defined by clustering clouds, as with this present example, or by clustering leaves or tendrils, as seen elsewhere, as if a sort of mandorla has formed around the birds. These changes can be seen happening around the third quarter of the 14^th century. The fact that it did happen probably owed something to the renewed popularity of another kind of previously-established Iranian textile-design, one where coin-like discs are set in rows against an undecorated ground.

c) The sequin effect

 

The use of various golden motifs in rows, as if they were sequins, or suspended coins set out on a textile ground (the word 'sequin' is, of course, a variant of the same concept, implying a suspended coin) can be seen in a prototypical form on a piece of the sort of date we are here discussing, in the Cleveland Museum of Art; this is a cut and voided red velvet, ornamented with gold discs (Wardwell 1989, p. 11; p.165, fig.57). Plain textiles enlivened with bright discs – which may at first often have been sewn-on bits of actual gold – are of course a very ancient feature of the Iranian tradition; they were produced during the Parthian as well as the Sassanian period, so far as can be ascertained from surviving material (for instance, sculptures from Parthian Hatra, see Keal 1989, p.51, fig.6; p.56, figs. 16,17; Ackermann 1939, p. 2028; Arts of Islam 1976, nos. 123 and 125.

 

There is some evidence of the use of such textiles in the 8^th and 9^th centuries in the Middle East, but cloths with this sort of patterning were certainly again available around the Mediterranean in the late 13^th and the 14^th century. They were described in the inventories of Popes Boniface VIII (in 1295) and Clement V in (1311), and are also mentioned in an inventory in the church of San Francesco in Assisi dating from 1341. The effect can be seen in a depiction of a textile in a painting by Simone Martini, dated 1319. This, then, was clearly a popular type of luxury cloth in the earlier 14^th century and for our purposes, it does not matter much where such cloths were made; they were just one more ingredient in the mélange of the post-Mongol development of Timurid textiles such as the present one. However, one should say that some technical details of the method of production of both the gold discs has led Anne Wardwell to believe it to have been made in Iran; she suggest in fact that it may have been made in the Ilkhanid capital of Tabriz (Wardwell 1989, p.111).