Late Eleventh Century, early Thirteenth Century eastern Central Asian embroidery of animals, birds, and flowers from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

When Silk was Gold

Central Asian and Chinese Textiles in The Metropolitan and Cleveland Museums of Art

NEW YORK CITY -- "When Silk was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles in The Metropolitan and Cleveland Museums of Art," the first exhibition devoted exclusively to the luxury silks and embroideries produced in Central Asia and China between the Eighth and the early Fifteenth Century, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 17. Featuring 65 works, including some textiles described as "cloth of gold" - a term used by Marco Polo and other early European travelers to Asia - the exhibition studies not only their dazzling appearance, complex patterns, and intricate workmanship, but investigates these textiles' importance both to their time and to the history of art.

The exhibition was jointly organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

During these centuries covered in "When Silk was Gold," textiles were as precious as gold. They were often used as currency, imperial and diplomatic embassies' gifts, offerings, and tributes, and also were transported as highly coveted commercial goods across vast distances from Asia to ports as far as Alexandria and Venice. These textiles are significant historical evidence mirroring the shifts in the social and economic conditions in Central Asia and China that occurred as dynasties rose and fell and empires expanded and crumbled.

Luxury textiles from Asia in the Middle Ages have so far received scant attention from scholars in the West. In fact, very little of the material shown in the exhibition had been known until the Metropolitan Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art began collecting in this area a dozen years ago. The extant material is presumably only a very small fraction of all textiles produced during the time.

Intense research over the past decades has resulted in the identification of these masterpieces of the weavers' and embroiderers' art within their historical and cultural contexts. Of the various groups of textiles covered in the exhibition, the earliest - Tang and Sogdian textiles of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries - have been preserved in relatively large numbers and are the most extensively studied thus far, while works dating from between the Tenth and the Fourteenth Century constitute the least studied areas.

The two collections are not comprehensive, nor do they document thoroughly the history of luxury textiles in Central Asia and China during the time. The works, however, are more or less representative of what survives. The exhibition is comprised of tapestries, embroideries, drawloom silks, including brocades, and cloths of gold. While the time span encompassed by the exhibition is from the Eighth to the early Fifteenth Century, most of the textiles in the exhibition date from the Mongol period (Thirteenth to mid-Fourteenth Century), which is the time of the expansion of Mongol territory.

The Mongol period witnessed great cultural exchanges, as a result of active trade and the massive movement of people - including armies and merchant caravans, travelers, and missionaries - across the European continent that linked the eastern Iranian world with China. Textiles, for the Mongol people, were a higher form of art than painting or sculpture. The weavers from the eastern Iranian world, who were captured by Mongols and resettled in northern China and Central Asia, brought to their work their own techniques and decorative repertoires. In due course, a bewildering variety of designs and structures emerged in the Central Asian textiles of the period.

The exhibition includes the fabrics used for the vestments of pontiffs and bishops in Europe, as well as the ceremonial robes of potentates of the Mongol empire. The subject matter ranges from delicate flower and bird scenes to stylized animal images, from imperial portraits to Buddhist icons and mandalas, with motifs drawn from every region.

Among the earliest textiles on view are the remarkable child's coat and pants, made to fit a very young child, and belonging to a rare set of garments dating from the Eighth Century. The outer fabric of the coat is a Sogdian silk (Sogdiana was a confederation of city states between the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers that was largely under the cultural influence of Persia in the Sasanian period), which is a compound twill woven with a design derived from Sasanian Iranian imagery, while the outer silk of the pants and the silk lining of both the pants and the coat are Chinese. The presence in a single outfit of silks from two such widely divergent geographical areas illustrates the importance of trade throughout the region in this early period.

The exhibition represents the various regions and time periods of silk tapestry (kesi in Chinese) that, of all the major categories of luxury textiles, poses the most problems with regard to origin and development. The earliest tapestries on view are the panels woven in the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century by the Uyghurs of Central Asia - the first people to weave pictorial kesi in Asia and transmit the technique to Song China. Among the silk tapestries are: "Dragons amid Flowers" (Eleventh-Twelfth Century), a brilliantly colorful example depicting dragons on a field of floral sprays; canopy (Southern Song dynasty, 1127-1279), a refined version of the Central Asian prototype woven in an imperial workshop; imperial boots (Liao dynasty, 907-1125); and the significant masterpiece, "Yamantaka Mandala with Imperial Portraits," [Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), circa 1330-32], the only work of textile art known to have been executed by imperial commission in the Mongol empire.

Another important group includes textiles brocaded with gold threads that were produced during the Jin and Mongol periods. Technically and stylistically, they fall into two categories: those that clearly belong to the weaving and decorative tradition of the Jin dynasty (1115-1234), and those influenced by weavers who were originally from the eastern Iranian world but were relocated by the Mongols into conquered Jin territories. Representing the former category is a dark green silk piece brocaded in gold with teardrop medallions, "Swan Hunt." This is also an example of the material used for the uniform of officials who accompanied the Jin emperor on the annual spring hunt. Representing the work of the relocated weavers is "Lotus Flowers" (Mongol period, Thirteenth-mid-Fourteenth Century), a symmetrical composition of lotus bulbs and paired warps, characteristic of the weaving tradition of the eastern Iranian world.

Among the most spectacular textiles in the exhibition are the cloths of gold from the Mongol period, which can be attributed primarily to Central Asia and the eastern Iranian world. "Cloth of gold" is a type of fabric produced in vast quantities in the Mongol empire for the ceremonial robes of the Mongol nobility and senior officials, who also lined their tents with these sumptuously decorated silks and used them for furnishings. A glorious example of its kind is the well-preserved "Cloth of Gold with Winged Lions and Griffins" (mid-Thirteenth Century), woven in brilliant gold against a dark brown, depicting roundels, each of which encloses a pair of winged lions standing back to back with heads turned. These silks were also exported from the Mongol empire to Europe and were used for vestments in medieval churches; typical of this is a large panel from the mid-Thirteenth Century, "Textile with Griffins," woven extensively with gold thread.

The embroideries on view span the entire chronological and geographical range of the exhibition and include a variety of styles and techniques. Of particular interest is a charming Central Asian embroidered square, "Animals, Birds, and Flowers" (late Eleventh-early Thirteenth Century), created in the High Tang style. Several works are executed in an unusual technique known as "needlelooping," which was first developed in China in the Southern Song period (1127-1279). A representative example - "Ocean, Rocks, and Peonies" (Yuan-early Ming Dynasty, Fourteenth Century) - employed the openwork needlelooping technique over silvered paper, which glints through the tiny holes to form delicate geometric patterns in each petal and leaf of the floral pattern.

The textiles in "When Silk was Gold" from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum are drawn from the museum's Antonio Ratti Textile Center.

With a fully illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition - which is available in the Metropolitan Museum's bookshop in hardcover for $60 and in paperback for $45 - the exhibition brings these textiles to greater scholarly and public attention and explores the implications of recent discoveries for the history of Asian textiles. The publication is made possible in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a series of educational programs has been planned, including lectures and gallery talks.

The exhibition is co-curated by James Watt, Brooke Russell Astor Senior Research Curator in the Department of Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Anne E. Wardwell, retired curator of textiles at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exhibition design is by Dennis Kois, with graphics by Barbara Weiss, and lighting by Zack Zanolli, all of the museum's design department.