Cleveland Museum of Art

Lampas with phoenixes amid undulating vines

Date

late 1200s-1300s

Medium

lampas: silk, cotton, and gold thread

Culture

Eastern Iran, Ilkhanid period

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The elegant design of standing or diving phoenixes among parallel, curving floral vines is based on Chinese textiles. The phoenixes are actually of two types (notice the difference in their tails). Their combination, probably an innovation of Yuan China (1279-1368), also appears on the embroidered canopy (cat. no. 60) in this exhibition. In the eastern Iranian world, Chinese motifs and patterns were incorporated into local designs beginning in the 1270s.

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