A textile fragment in black, white, yellow, blue and red threads with floral and geometric patterns and an inscription in Greek.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A rectangular textile fragment with irregular edges and a white band containing blue vines and pink berries down the left side. To the right is a yellow right triangle with a smaller blue right triangle in its center. The yellow triangle has a pattern of white dots over it and is bordered with black on the outside edge. Three blue squares divided by a diagonal white line, one two-toned pink square, and a small pink roundel with blue corners are placed within the yellow triangle. A white border outlines the boundary between the yellow and blue triangles. The inscription Ο ΑΓΙ(ΟΣ) ΘΕΟΔΟ(ΡΟΣ) is in the blue triangle, though the entire text and the right side of these shapes are lost where the textile ends in a cut edge. Above the yellow triangle, a corner of red ground with a partial roundel in black, white, yellow, and blue is worked.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1939.112.2
Title
Fragments of a Hanging: St. Theodore and Inscription
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Textile Fragment with Partial Inscription of "Saint Theodore"
Classification
Textile Arts
Work Type
textile
Date
6th-7th century
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Africa, Akmin (Egypt)
Period
Byzantine period
Culture
Coptic
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/214817

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Wool
Technique
Woven
Dimensions
32 × 44 cm (12 5/8 × 17 5/16 in.)
framed: 56.2 × 44.8 × 3.2 cm (22 1/8 × 17 5/8 × 1 1/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: Ο ΑΓΙ(ΟΣ) ΘΕΟΔΟ(ΡΟΣ)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller
Accession Year
1939
Object Number
1939.112.2
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Walters Art Gallery, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, exh. cat., The Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, MD, 1947), cat. no. 783
  • 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. 12

Exhibition History

  • 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 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