In the Late Middle Ages, a Muslim dynasty known as the Nasrids ruled over the southern coast of Iberia in present-day Spain. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada built the celebrated Alhambra palace and more than 100 mosques before it fell to the Catholic Kingdom of Aragon in 1492.
This large fragment from the 14th or 15th century may have been part of a garment worn by a Nasrid emir (king) or one of his high-ranking officials. Only a person of great wealth could have afforded its high material and labor cost. The sumptuous fabric was woven entirely of silk with designs in gold-gilded thread using a very complex weave structure. The textile’s light weight suggests that it might have been a garment, such as an outer robe, appropriate to southern Spain’s warm climate.
Designs of interlaced, eight-pointed stars, birds and trees arranged in horizontal bands mirror the popular aesthetic of Islamic architecture in Iberia, including the stucco walls and ceiling decorations of the Alhambra itself. The colors of the fabric are also typical of the region’s Islamic style: light and dark blues, greens and yellows against a red background.
While this textile displays strong Iberian Islamic style and design sensitivities, it might have been made by ethnically and religious diverse master craftsmen, including Muslim and Jewish designers, dyers and weavers living in Spain or elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
