Tiraz: Nine Early Islamic Textiles
- Dates: October 28, 2005 through July 10, 2006
- Collections: Arts of the Islamic World
- Location:
This exhibition is no longer on view
on the 2nd Floor - Related Links:
Print
-
... more
July 2005: An installation of tiraz textiles from the Brooklyn Museum’s holdings of Islamic textiles will be on view from October 2005 through February 2006. Tiraz: Early Islamic Textiles comprises nine examples of these rarely seen fabric fragments, along with an exceptional Iranian ceramic bowl. Included will be one of several fragments from the earliest datable Islamic textile, bearing the name Caliph Marwan II, a ruler from the earliest Islamic dynasty.
The installation is being presented in conjunction with the Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire. An exhibition of twenty-one Roman-period mosaics from the first ancient synagogue to be unearthed in modern times, along with related objects, it will be on view October 28, 2005 through June 4, 2005.
Created between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, tiraz are a type of textile popular in the early and medieval Islamic periods. Particularly through the tenth century, examples of tiraz textiles of North Africa demonstrated continuity with the artistic forms of the Greco-Roman period as exemplified in the material in Tree of Paradise. Although the term tiraz has its roots in the Persian word for embroidery, it came to encompass several meanings, including the name for the public and royal factories throughout the Islamic world, where these textiles were made. Tiraz also refers to the calligraphic decoration of garments and fabrics for furnishings, often containing important historical information, as well as to uninscribed ornamental bands made in a variety of techniques, also used in clothing and fabric for furnishings.
The Muslim conquerors of Egypt took control of the textile industry and artists working through North Africa incorporated aspects of the regions symbolic vocabulary in to Arabic artistic forms. Thus some early Islamic textiles, included in the exhibition, demonstrate combinations of late Antique and Coptic motifs, such as human and animal figures that are also evident in some of the works in Tree of Paradise.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum
