Art and Materials Conservation Commons^™

Mamluk Rugs From Egypt: Jewels Of The Textile Museum's Collection (Exhibition), Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Mamluk rugs are considered by many to be among the most beautiful of any rugs ever created. The brilliant reds, greens, and blues (figs. 1 and 2) are reminiscent of rubies, emeralds and sapphires; whether this was an intentional evocation is not known. But The Textile Museum's holdings of Mamluk rugs, unparalleled in the world, are truly the "jewels" of the collection. Simply by virtue of the fact that they date from the late 15th century, Mamluk rugs comprise one of the most significant groups of classical carpets. Their lustrous wool and wondrous color, as well as their geometric designs …

Carpets Of Andalusia (Exhibition), Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The fall of Granada in 1492 reestablished Christian dominion in Spain after centuries of Islamic rule. The rapid expansion of Islam from Arabia in the 7th century encompassed the rich cultural legacy of the Late Antique world, forging a unified empire throughout the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean lands and across North Africa to Spain within a short span of several decades. Arab and Berber armies had crossed into Spain in 711, generating at once an effort that lasted for many generations to restore Christian rule. In Islamic times, the Iberian peninsula was called al-Andalus, or Andalusia. Although we have …

Geometric Patterns And The Interpretation Of Meaning: Two Monuments In Iran, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The Alhambra has often served in the West as the paradigm for understanding geometric pattern in Islamic art. Constructed in Spain in the 13th century as a highly defended palace, it is a relatively late manifestation of an Islamic fascination with geometric pattern. Numerous earlier Islamic buildings, from Spain to India, exhibit extensive geometric patterning, which substantiate a mathematical interest in the spatial dimension and its manifold potential for meaning. This paper examines two monuments on the Iranian plateau, dating from the 11 th century of our era, in which more than one hundred exterior surface areas have received patterns …

Introduction To Doris Duke's Shangri La By Sharon Littlefield, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

SHANGRI LA, the most intimate of Doris Duke's residences, is the one that today offers the best view into the private domain of a public celebrity. What it reveals about Doris Duke presents a strong contrast to her well-publicized persona as a tobacco heiress, born to wealth, who liked to frolic. Observe the house, spilling down terraces of Ka'alawai toward the sea; contemplate its well-considered vistas and its polished black lava, white marble, and coral limestone surfaces. Admire the architectural features shipped from abroad and installed on site; experience the gardens with their towering trees, sparkling water chutes, and placid …

Review Of Stillman, Arab Dress: A Short History, From The Dawn Of Islam To Modem Times., Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Arab Dress: A Short History, From the Dawn of Islam to Modem Times. By YADIDA KALFON STILLMAN. Edited by NORMAN A. STILLMAN. Themes in Islamic Studies, vol. 2. Leiden: BRILL, 2000. Pp. xxxii + 240, plates, figs.

Billowing folds, exquisite pleats, tightly wound turbans, flowing burqas, short square kerchiefs-the dramatic drapery of Islamic fashion fills the quiet spaces of our daily news coverage; yet the garments illustrated and their significance often pass without verbal notice. Little would Yedida Stillman ever have anticipated the widespread presence of the Islamic vestimentary system in Western media a short three years after her death …

Symmetry-Breaking In Oriental Carpets: The Case For Beauty, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

emerges from truth. Symmetry-breaking requires an expectation of symmetry. Often, symmetry-breaking is confused with asymmetry. But, rather, asymmetry is simply the absence of symmetry. For symmetry-breaking to exist, a pattern must first be stablished. Symmetry then is expected, but somehow that expectation is not met. There are many ways to effect symmetry-breaking in Oriental carpets. The study of Oriental carpets may lead one to suppose that in art, as in nature, it is in the approximation of symmetry, rather than in its precision, that beauty is to be found and appreciated. What is an Oriental Carpet? No one ever set …

A Calligrapher's Art: Inscribed Cotton Ikat From Yemen, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Yemen at the advent of Islam and in the ensuing centuries is a little known entity in our contemporary world. A thousand years ago when Baghdad was capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasid caliphs, Yemen was a flourishing center of agriculture and trade. By camel caravan north to central Islamic lands and in maritime trade with India to the east and Africa across the straits, Yemen's ports of call along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden were emporia for textiles, dyestuffs, and incense.

While today Yemen predominantly imports textiles from abroad, in the early centuries after the …

Review Of Islamische Textilkunst Des Mittelalters: Aktuelle Problemne, Edited By Karel Otavsky., Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Islamische Textilkunst des Mittelalters: Aktuelle Problemne. Edited by KAREL OTAVSKY. Riggisberger Berichte 5. Riggisberg, Switzerland: Abegg-Stiftung, 1997. Pp. 219 + 214 figs.

Focusing on textiles of Egypt and North Africa in the Fatimid period (A.D. 909-1171), this volume presents the edited proceedings of a scholarly conference on medieval Islamic textiles held at the Abegg-Stiftung in Riggisberg, Switzerland, 10-11 November 1995. Eighteen papers (published in English, French, or German) by fourteen authors are organized in three sections that deal with the functions, inscriptions, and weaving techniques, followed by a bibliography of references cited, a list of illustrations, and the authors' …

"Gabba" In Encyclopædia Iranica, Jean-Pierre Digard, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

GABBA (gava in Kurdish and Lori, Īzadpanāh, s.v.; ḵersak in Baḵtīārī, Digard, pp. 128-31), a hand-woven pile rug of coarse quality and medium size (90 x 150 cm or larger) characterized by an abstract design that relies upon open fields of color and a playfulness with geometry. This kind of rug is common among the tribes of the Zagros (Kurdish, Lori-speaking ethnic groups, Qašqāʾīs). The first known reference to gabba is found in a farmān by Shah Ṭahmāsp (r. 930-84/1524-76) dating to the middle of the 16th century (Opie, 1992, p. 124). Gabbas were said to have originated in …

Choices And Constraints: Pattern Formation In Oriental Carpets, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Patterns in nature result from dynamic relationships of forces and constraints. What is analogous for patterns in art? Art is created by human hands motivated by inspiration and thought. It is the product of creativity and skill. Creativity is constrained by cognitive processes and skill by the limits of technology. Based upon the author’s studies of Oriental carpets, this paper suggests that patterns in art result from dynamic relationships of choices and constraints. Typically, traditional Oriental carpets from historical rug-weaving regions of the world exhibit a multiplicity of patterns—field patterns and border patterns that express a vast array of designs …

Japanese Kimono Fashion Of The Early Twentieth Century, Annie Van Asche

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the development of popular kimono fashion from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. I focus on kimono worn by modem-thinking young women whose wardrobes, by the 1920's, included both new Western and recreated Japanese garments and accessories. The meisen kasuri kimono, the most popular new style of kimono among women living in the growing urban metropolitan centers, is highlighted. It covers an unprecedented historical period of rapid modernization and Westernization of Japan, which brought about societal changes that dramatically--and positively--transformed the lives of Japanese women. I begin with a historical sketch of the industrialization of …

Textiles, Scholarship, And Art Education: An Art College Perspective, Wendy Landry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In many communities the art college is the last formal refuge of active textile-making knowledge and heritage. This location appears to value playful, risky, or challenging material explorations which might result in creative design or meaningful visual expression. This should be the best environment for cultivating adventurous students able to integrate a wide range of experience and resources towards generating new ideas for interesting contemporary textiles. It could be a good place in which to discover how textiles contribute to human experience and history, and how they are meaningful. However, I submit that this art environment is still detrimental to …

Circles And Centers: A Review Article, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Review of: Geometric Patterns from Islamic Art & Architecture, by Robert Field. Tarquin Publications, Norfolk, UK, c1998. AND "The Nature of Islamic Ornament, Part III: Geometric Patterns," exhibition on view March 17-July 18, 1999 in the Hagop Kevorkian Fund Special Exhibitions Gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Circles of equal radius, when tight-packed, naturally combine in two ways. One method yields centers that form a triangular grid; the other method yields centers that form a square grid. These basic mathematical considerations underlie the play of pattern in Islamic art. By selecting centers in a triangular grid, one may establish …

Review Of Textiles Of Late Antiquity, By Annemarie Stauffer Et Al., Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

This publication presents twenty-nine superb photographs of a selection of outstanding Late Antique textiles from among more than fifteen hundred classified as Coptic in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accompanying an exhibition of sixty-one textiles (on view 4 December 1995-7 April 1996), this booklet celebrates the "new, accessible storage and ex- tensive visual and documentary archives" (p. 4) of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metro politan Museum of Art. ...

The study of textiles can tell us so much more about the societies from which they came, about the cultures that produced them--information concerning environmental …

Review Of The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry And Ornament In Islamic Architecture, By Gulru Necipoglu, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Reviewed work: The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture, Gulru Necipoglu. Santa Monica, CA: J. Paul Getty Publications, 1996.

Reproducing the patterns from a 15th-century scroll (Topkapi Palace Museum Library, MS H.1956) that served as a guide for architects and artisans, Necipoglu brilliantly explores the juncture of geometry and philosophy that informed art and architecture over the centuries. Lucid essays accompany illustrations the scroll's 114 sequential patterns and place this virtually unknown work the dynamic intellectual discourses on geometry, religion and building that taking place in Europe and parts of the Islamic world during the 15th century. …

The Legacy Of Timur: A Small Rug At The Textile Museum, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Among the two hundred lots offered oh the block by Christie's from Bernheimer Family Collection of Rugs in February 1996, a small shaped rug with white ground was acquired by the Textile Museum. The rug was Lot 192, published in the catalogue as an East Persian saddle rug dating to the 19th century. The Textile Museum's interest in the piece was sparked by my hunch, based upon its design, that this rug is far more significant than its published attribution might suggest. A carefully conceived trefoil scroll implies a Timurid heritage. To read the design correctly, it should probably have …

Legacy Of Collector George Hewitt Myers, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

A CULTURAL JEWEL in the nation's capital, The Textile Museum is a testament to the vision and unerring eye of its founder, George Hewitt Myers. Established in 1925, this small museum has assumed a revered place in the international museum community not only for the quality of its collections and library, but also for its leadership. in the study, preservation and interpretation of the textile arts. Over the years it has been the flagship institution for the conservation and display of textiles around the world based upon the foresight of Myers. Today, The Textile Museum's exhibitions and educational initiatives distinguish …

The Meaning Of Yoruba Aso Olona Is Far From Water Tight, Lisa Aronson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

While researching the ritual meaning of cloth among the Eastern Ijo of the Niger Delta, I examined the contents of a number of family owned trunks in which were stored old and much valued cloths traded from elsewhere in Africa, Europe, and India. One type of cloth which I frequently found in these collections was one made up of three, or sometimes four, woven strips that are sewn along the salvage and decorated with supplemental weft-float design. The Eastern Ijo regard this cloth as a valuable heirloom for its trade value and for the fact that its designs evoke spiritual …

Textiles Of Sacrifice: Aztec Ritual Capes, Patricia Rieff Anawalt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This presentation analyzes three long-gone prehispanic textiles, a feat made possible due to the peculiarities of the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and the sixteenth-century Spaniards' dedication to detailed recordkeeping. From Columbus' first voyage in 1492 to Spain's final expulsion from the Americas in the nineteenth century, the Spaniards were exemplary recorders. Fortunately, this trait was particularly evident in the decades following the 1519–1521 conquest of Mexico, a period that yielded invaluable conquistador eye-witness accounts, administrative records and missionary chronicles. It is to the latter genre that we owe the data presented in this paper.

Of all the newly-discovered peoples in the …

Other Pile-Weavings From Safavid Iran - The Persian Velvets At Rosenborg, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Among Persian pile-weavings, the most famous are carpets produced in Safavid Iran connected with the Persian monarchy or with European royalty. These include the Habsburg hunting Carpet today in the Osterreichisches Museum for Anfewandte Kunst, Vienna, the Swedish royal carpet, and perhaps the Boston Hunting Carpet . A hunting carpet which may also be categorized as a "medallion carpet" is that in Milan at the Poldi Pezzoli; another celebrated medallion carpet is the Ardabil carpet in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London , with a companion in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. More numerous are the star medallion …

Approaches To Understanding Oriental Carpets, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

ORIENTAL CARPETS reached a peak in production in the late nineteenth century, when a boom in market demand in Europe and America encouraged increased *24 production in Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus.* Areas east of the Mediterranean Sea at that time were referred to as. the Orient (in contrast to the Occident, which referred to Europe). To study the origins of these carpets and their ancestral heritage is to embark on a journey to Central Asia and the Middle East, to regions of low rainfall and many sheep, to inhospitable lands where animal husbandry and the seeking of good pastures …

Symmetry & Pattern: The Art Of Oriental Carpets, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The beauty of oriental carpets is achieved by various means including choice of colors and designs, as well as by the manipulation of designs to form pleasing patterns. Patterns in Oriental carpets are never quite what you expect — a surprise here, a flourish there, a change of color, the flip or rotation of a design where you might not predict it. The more you look, the more variations you will find.

The study of symmetry offers an approach to analyzing patterns in Oriental carpets. Through symmetry analysis we may identify areas of pattern that exhibit expected repetitions, and areas …

Ornament And Islamic Art, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Review of: The Mediation of Ornament, by OLEG GRABAR & Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, by ALOIS RIEGL.

TWO MAJOR WORKS addressing the nature of art, published in the same year but written a century apart, are each based, in part, upon analyses of Islamic monuments. Both derive from series of lectures on the history of ornament, and each offers a perspective explicitly countering the author's own intellectual milieu in the study of art focused on Western tradition.

Problems of Style is an impressive translation of Stilfragen, a broadly-based and wide-ranging inquiry by Alois …

Preface - Contact, Crossover, Continuity - 1994, Louise W. Mackie, Patricia R. Anawalt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Fourth Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, Inc., was hosted by the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, California, September 22–24, 1994. The papers addressed a broad theme which was chosen in order to accommodate the diverse interests of members. The proceedings contains the thirty papers and two abstracts of papers presented at the symposium, plus a video script, and a list of the two hundred and forty participants.

Contact, Crossover, Continuity highlights the causes and effects of change on textiles around the world. The proceedings provides an opportunity to identify and evaluate …

Table Of Contents - Contact, Crossover, Continuity - 1994

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Table of contents from Contact, Crossover, Continuity: Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, September 22–24, 1994

What’S In A Name: The Domestication Of Factory Produced Wax Textiles In Cote D’Ivoire, Kathleen E. Bickford

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In a frequently evoked passage from Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare asks "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Yet, as Romeo and Juliet tragically come to learn, human beings make much of names. Indeed, one's name is a significant part of one's social persona; it can describe who we are, it can join us and separate us from others, and it can link us to the past. In a sense, when we are named we are given an identity. Describing the complexities of naming for the Wamakua …

Continuity Of Culture: A Reenactor’S Goal, Elizabeth Mcclure

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the maintenance of cultural continuity through historical reenactment. It is the reenactor's goal, in this case, to portray and maintain the culture of Ireland and Scotland. They are holding on to this culture and presenting it to others by maintaining the dress, crafts, and lifestyles of sixteenth-century Scotland and Ireland.

The methods of data collection for this study were ethnographic in nature. Interviews with key informants were conducted. In addition, there was a questionnaire distributed to members of the group This method of data collection provided the insight to see how a member of this group achieved …

Green Labels With Golden Elephants: Western European Printed Cottons For Malaysia And Indonesia, Frieda Sorber

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the second half of the 19th century, several Belgian cotton printing firms were involved in the production of imitations of African and Southeast Asian textiles for markets in West-Africa, the Dutch East Indies, and Malaysia. Extensive records of one firm, the Societe Anonyme Texas, owned by the Voortman family in Ghent, have been preserved in the Ghent public records office and the Vrieselhof Textile Museum (Oelegem, near Antwerp). Frans de Vos and Abraham Voortman started a cotton printing establishment in Ghent in 1790. At that time cotton printing was a relatively new type of enterprise in Flanders. The first …

Bolong-Bolong And Tirtanadi: An Unknown Group Of Balinese Textiles, Marie-Louise Nabholz-Kartaschoff, Monika Palm-Nadolny

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

On late 19th- and early 20th-century photographs, South and East Balinese people clad in traditional adat wardrobe for rituals, temple ceremonies, and dances often wear transparent, netlike open-work textiles as breastcloth (anteng), shouldercloth (cerik) girdle (selendang), or headcloth (destar, lelunakan). Information given by elderly Balinese concerning the situation before World War II confirm their use as part of their ceremonial wardrobe but also as important items in offerings and rituals. Such textiles could be laid over several fabrics, covering the body of a toothfiling candidate, or serve as curtains (langse …

Micronesian Textiles In Transition: The Woven Tol Of Kosrae, Ann Deegan, Ross Cordy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper presents findings on the major steps in the transition of the Kosraen tol from traditional clothing, to tourist souvenir, to the end of tol manufacture. An extensive study of the German, French, and English literature of the 19th and 20th centuries was done to piece together the history of the Kosraen tol.

The island of Kosrae, located in the Pacific (4–10°N latitude, 140–163°E longitude), is part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Since earliest European contact it has seen numerous changes in its traditional culture. One of its most beautiful and complex traditional crafts is the woven …