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A textile fragment with a red background bearing a woven portrait of a bearded man next to a hand grasping a staff.

The textile is approximately rectangular with irregular edges and some lost areas. Saint Theodore’s flesh is worked in shades of undyed, pale pink, and tan, threads and he wears an off-white robe with a red collar and blue border fastened by a small decorative pin on the proper right shoulder. He is in a three-quarters pose, and has blues, red lips, and a medium-brown beard that extends just past his chin. Theodore has short, curly brown hair and his head is framed by an off-white halo. To the right is a hand grasping a staff with a jeweled cross. Remnants of another staff appear to his left.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1939.112.1
Title
Fragments of a Hanging: St. Theodore and Inscription
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Textile Fragment: Head of Saint Theodore
Classification
Textile Arts
Work Type
textile
Date
6th-7th century
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Africa, Egypt (Ancient)
Period
Byzantine period
Culture
Coptic
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/213118

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Wool and linen
Technique
Woven
Dimensions
37 × 48 cm (14 9/16 × 18 7/8 in.)
framed: 44.8 × 57.5 × 3.2 cm (17 5/8 × 22 5/8 × 1 1/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Paul Mallon, Paris, (by 1926)], sold; to Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr., New York (1926-1939), gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1939.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller
Accession Year
1939
Object Number
1939.112.1
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • "Pagan and Christian Egypt: Egyptian Art from the First to the Tenth Century A.D." (1941), Brooklyn Museum, p. 78, no. 243, ill.
  • Walters Art Gallery, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, exh. cat., The Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, MD, 1947), cat. no. 783, pl. CIX
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), p. 117, no. 132, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., Harvard Art Museum/Handbook (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2008)
  • Gudrun Buehl, Sumru Belger Krody, and Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt, exh. cat., The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum (Washington, D.C., 2019), p. 72, cat. 26
  • Hannibal Books, Dress - Continuity and Change in Egypt in the 1st Millennium AD: Proceedings of the twelfth conference of the research group "Textiles form the Nile Valley", Cäcilia Fluck (2023), pp. 110-111, fig. 11

Exhibition History

  • An Exhibition of Italian Paintings and Drawings, Fogg Art Museum, 03/24/1939 - 04/15/1939
  • Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 04/24/1947 - 07/01/1947
  • 2,000 Years of Tapestry Weaving, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 02/27/1952 - 03/25/1952
  • Beyond the Pharaohs: Egypt and the Copts in the 2nd to 7th Centuries A.D., Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 02/10/1989 - 04/16/1989; Walters Art Gallery, 05/17/1989 - 07/15/1989
  • 32Q: 3740 Egyptian, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 05/12/2015
  • Woven Interiors: Early Medieval Textiles of the Eastern Mediterranean, The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, Washington, 08/31/2019 - 01/05/2020

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be 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