Textile Fabrics / A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the Museum

by Daniel Rock

8620.

Piece of Silk and Gold Damask; ground, dark blue, in some places faded; pattern, a band charged with squares in gold, every alternate one inscribed with the same short Arabic word, lions in gold beneath a tree in light blue shaded white, and cockatoos in gold. Syrian, 14th century. 19 inches by 13½ inches.

So strong is the likeness between this and the stuff at [No. 8359], both in the texture of the silk and the treatment of the beasts and birds, that we are led to suppose them to have come from the same identical workshop. That tree-like ornament, under which the shaggy long-tailed lion with down-bent head is creeping, seems the traditionary form of the Persians’ “hom.” The gold is, in most parts, very brilliant, owing to the broadness of the metal wrapped round the linen thread that holds it; and, altogether, this is a rich specimen of the Syrian loom.