Cleveland Museum of Art

Tent panel of a dragon slayer

Date

1550–99

Medium

velvet, cut, voided, brocaded, and pile-warp substitution: silk and gilt-metal strips

Culture

Iran, Yazd[?], reign of Shah Tahmasp, Safavid period (1501-1736)

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Iranian luxury textiles of the 16th and 17th centuries are renowned for representing human figures and for creating the most colorful velvets ever woven. Here, a dragon slayer dressed in 16th-century court attire is poised to hurl a boulder at a snarling dragon in a landscape with blossoming fruit trees and perched fowl. Even with faded silk pile this velvet contains many nuanced tones. As many as 12 colors of velvet pile were achieved by weavers who skillfully replaced colored pile warp during weaving. This velvet medallion decorated the interior of an imperial tent, possibly donated by Shah Tahmasp to an Ottoman Turkish sultan. Captured after the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, the medallion was claimed as war booty by the European commander-in-chief Prince Sanguszko of Poland by whose name this and other panels are known. Originally the ivory ground was covered with costly gilt-metal strips, which may have been removed for their monetary value.

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