Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Bush-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Object Number

1931.46

Title

Roundel: Personification with Candelabra Plants

Classification

Textile Arts

Work Type

textile

Date

7th-8th century

Places

Creation Place: Africa, Egypt

Period

Byzantine period

Culture

Byzantine

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/213655

Medium

Wool and linen

Technique

Woven, tapestry weave

Dimensions

20.32 cm (8 in.)

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Charles Bain Hoyt

Accession Year

1931

Object Number

1931.46

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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Description

Tapestry woven roundel (orbiculus). The small medallion at its center contains a female figure, likely a beneficent personification, with a green nimbus against a bright red background. Her breasts are distinguished in yellow against her dark blue torso. She wears a skirt with many folds and may be seated. The woman raises one arm and possibly holds up a leaf in a gesture common to depictions of personifications of the earth. Thin white supplementary threads above the woman’s right hand may be an unreadable interpretation of the inscriptions that often identify personifications. Eight thick, gold plant forms outlined in black surround the central medallion in a symmetrical arrangement; these plants are of the jeweled candelabra type often featured in textile medallions in the later part of Late Antiquity. Four of the vine-like plants contain birds, and the other four have leaves/flowers of various colors. Small birds and red dots fill the empty space within the main field. The borders of the central medallion and the larger design field are formed by interlocking color segments outlined in black. The outermost border is formed of red and yellow tendrils and blue dots.

Undyed warps run parallel to the orientation of the figural design.

Commentary

Matches MFA 16.313 from the Denman Waldo Ross Collection

Belongs to a certain style favoring bright primary colors, red backgrounds, borders of interlocking color segments, and compositions with female earth personifications at the center of roundels surrounded by a symmetrical arrangement plants, animals, and sometimes nereids. This style of textile is often dated to the 7-9th centuries.

Ioli Kalavrezou, Byzantine Women and Their World, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2003), p. 271/fig. 161

Byzantine Women and Their World, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/25/2002 - 04/28/2003

This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu