Name of Object:

Brocade

Location:

Stockholm, Sweden

Holding Museum:

Museum of National Antiquities

Original Owner:

Hjortsberga Church, Blekinge, Sweden

Current Owner:

Hjortsberga Church, Blekinge, Sweden

Date of Object:

Hegira 9th–10th centuries / AD 15th–16th centuries

Museum Inventory Number:

15 662

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Silk, gold and silver threads; brocade.

Dimensions:

Height 174 cm, width 94 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Ottoman

Provenance:

Turkey.

Description:

The aesthetics of this fabric is based on a repetitive design of large medallions and a well-balanced use of only three colours. Finely drawn silver arabesques fill the centre of each medallion, surrounded by a narrow poly-lobed frame of red silk. It follows a row of circles alternately coloured red and silver. A zigzag encloses this inner pattern. Red contoured trefoils and leaves on a golden background form the outer border. A detail which also proves the skill of the designer is the small silver point emphasising the middle of each trefoil.
This brocade is part of a larger piece formerly used as an antependium (altar frontal). Many of the ecclesiastical textiles made in Sweden include fabrics imported from Persia and Turkey.

Brocade with a repetitive design of large medallions. The design shows a well-balanced use of colours: silver for the arabesques which fill the centre of each medallion and red for the surrounding poly-lobed frames. This brocade is part of a larger piece formerly used as an antependium (altar frontal).

How date and origin were established:

Dated by A. Geijer (see Bibliography).

How Object was obtained:

Deposit by Hjortsberga Church.

How provenance was established:

Provenance established by A. Geijer (see Bibliography).

Selected bibliography:

Ådahl, K. (ed.), Sverige och den Islamiska Världen, Värnamo, 2002, pp.178–81.
Geijer, A., Oriental Textiles in Sweden, Copenhagen, 1951, p.50, cat. no. 48, plate 24.
Islam, Konst och Kultur. Islam, Art and Culture, Exhibition catalogue, Stockholm, 1985, 209, cat. no. 9.

Citation of this web page:

Friederike Voigt "Brocade" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;se;Mus01_A;36;en

Prepared by: Friederike VoigtFriederike Voigt

Friederike Voigt has an MA in Iranian studies, history of art and social science and is currently working on her doctoral thesis on wall tiles in architectural decoration of Qajar Iran. Since 2004 she has been a project-related curator at the Museum for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm for Museum With No Frontiers. She studied at Humboldt University in Berlin, at the University of Tehran and archaeology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. She taught Persian language at several universities in Germany. She was an assistant curator at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Cultures at the Museum of Ethnology, State Museums of Berlin. Her main fields of interest are the material culture of Iran, especially of the Qajar period, and contemporary Iranian art.
Copyedited by: Monica Allen

MWNF Working Number: SE 38