This item has been added to the Database within the Explore Islamic Art Collections project. Information is available in: English, Arabic.

Name of Object:

Curtain Panel with Design of Horizontal Bands of Geometric Patterns and Arabic Inscriptions in Kufic Script

Location:

Saint Louis, United States of America

Holding Museum:

Saint Louis Art Museum

About Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis

Date of Object:

Hegira 8th century / AD 14th century

Museum Inventory Number:

52:1939

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Brocaded silk

Dimensions:

Length: 103.2cm x Width: 37.1cm

Period / Dynasty:

Mudejar

Provenance:

Spain, Europe

Description:

A long rectangular brocaded silk panel displaying twenty-one bands of varying widths with patterns in yellow, blue or green, black, and white on a red ground. Two bands are exceptionally wide. One of these wide bands is filled with a yellow geometric arabesque that encloses six elaborate eight-pointed stars. The other displays a smaller, more tightly spaced version of the star motif. Two nearly-identical sections of nine narrow bands alternate with these wide bands. In the center of each nine-band section is a band with five yellow stars surrounded by interlacing lines of blue or green forming an Arabic inscription in kufic script, which reads in translation as "success and happiness." On either side of this wide band is a series of three narrow bands with alternating red and yellow arabesques on either side of a central band. It has a running white arabesque around cartouches (ovoid frames) with another Arabic inscription in kufic script, which reads in translation as "good luck and prosperity," that alternate with rosettes in red or red and green. This series of seven smaller bands is framed by thin bands of alternating serrated triangles; the triangles point up and down in different colors, either red on green or white on green. The bottom of the panel has a contrasting checkerboard motif in yellow, white, black and red, and ends in a band of red tassels.

How date and origin were established:

Scholarly review and/or comparison to similar objects from the period.

How Object was obtained:

Museum Purchase, 1939

How provenance was established:

Scholarly review and/or comparison to similar objects from the period.

Selected bibliography:

Al Khemir, Sabiha, Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture, Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 2012.

Citation of this web page:

 "Curtain Panel with Design of Horizontal Bands of Geometric Patterns and Arabic Inscriptions in Kufic Script" in Explore Islamic Art Collections. Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;EPM;us;Mus24;21;en

MWNF Working Number: US4 21