A series of small textile fragments depicting faces alternating with flowers on a dark background; the fragments are arranged to show how they would appear in relation to each other if the piece were intact.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A series of small textile fragments depicting busts with halos alternating with a floral pattern. The figures are pale with pink and blue robes and details; the flowers are similarly colored. The fragments have been arranged as they might appear in relation to each other on the band with gaps left to represent the lost areas.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1975.41.23.A
Title
Fragments of a Textile Hanging with Female Busts
Classification
Textile Arts
Work Type
textile
Date
5th-6th century
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Africa, Egypt (Ancient)
Period
Byzantine period, Early
Culture
Byzantine
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/288639

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Wool and linen
Technique
Woven, tapestry weave
Dimensions
18 cm h x 107 cm w (7 1/16 in. h x 42 1/8 in. w)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Hagop Kevorkian collection, gift; to the Fogg Museum, 1975.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of The Hagop Kevorkian Foundation in memory of Hagop Kevorkian
Accession Year
1975
Object Number
1975.41.23.A
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
This fragmentary tapestry-woven textile depicts five female busts representing well dressed woman interspersed with stylized pink and green palmettes. The exact orientation of these heads is uncertain, but this was most likely a hanging depicting a secular theme and hung in a domestic space. All the women are dark-haired and wear headdresses topped with crowns; what are either veils or haloes are covered in large round pearls. Though the busts may appear identical at first glance, they are marked by subtle variations in eye color, expression, and details of tunics and jewelry. All of their elaborate robes vary in decoration—some are woven with flower patterns, others are studded with jewels. Each woman registers a somewhat different expression. The most prominent feature of the faces is the eyes, with arched brows. Four of the women look to their left, while the rightmost returns their gaze. In the four women who look to the right, eye color alternates between blue and brown.

This pattern of female busts alternating with flowers seems to have been a common decorative trope in Byzantine interior spaces in Egypt and is attested in several media including architectural friezes. Such luxuriously dressed women may represent general ideas of prosperity, luxury, or feminine beauty. Their appearance is reminiscent of the (typically female) personifications of natural elements or beneficent concepts common to Late Antique art, such as the seasons, Earth, Renewal, and Enjoyment. In this particular textile, they may also represent tyche figures or empresses because of their turreted crowns.

There are areas of plain woven linen above and below the tapestry band.
Commentary
Comparable textiles in other institutions: Brooklyn Museum 38.684; Museum of Fine Arts Boston 30.685; University of Toronto, Malcove Collection M82.44; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 52.Dt.38
On many of the other similar textiles the women clearly wear a diadem and have haloes, instead of the more ambiguous headdress studded with pearls on this textile.

Publication History

  • Ioli Kalavrezou, Byzantine Women and Their World, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp. 174-175/fig. 92

Exhibition History

  • Pagan and Christian Egypt: Egyptian Art from the First to the Tenth Century AD, Brooklyn Museum of Art, 01/23/1941 - 03/09/1941
  • Byzantine Women and Their World, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/25/2002 - 04/28/2003
  • 32Q: 3740 Egyptian, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/30/2018 - 05/08/2019

Related Objects

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