Cleveland Museum of Art

Two-color Velvet with Gold in a Double Curved Lattice Pattern

Date

1450–1500

Medium

silk, gold thread; polychrome velvet: cut pile, brocaded, and voided

Culture

Italy, possibly Florence, 15th century

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Although plain velvets were woven in Italy by the end of the 13th century, polychrome-patterned velvets were not produced until the late 14th century. This velvet with two colors of pile incorporates a limited amount of costly gold thread while a fourth color, ivory, is formed by the satin weave of the foundation, called voided velvet. Palmette leaves composed of gold thread and crimson pile dominate the pattern on the green pile ground. The palmettes are arranged in an overlapping curved layout, popular in Italy and in Ottoman Turkey during the second half of the 15th century.

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