Textile Fragment4th-6th century

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Geffen Galleries

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Title: Textile Fragment
Culture: Coptic
Place Made: Egypt
Date Made: 4th-6th century
Medium: Goat-hair plain weave with supplementary-weft patterning
Dimensions: 18 × 34 1/2 in. (45.72 × 87.63 cm)
Credit Line: Costume Council Fund
Accession Number: M.70.23.2
Classification: Textiles
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: While it is impossible to determine at present how this handsome textile once functioned, we can propose with some degree of certainty a general date and provenance based on closely related excavated examples. Textiles sharing the same material, technique, and color scheme have been uncovered at a number of sites along the Nile in Egypt, dating to the Late Antique period. Like the LACMA textile, they were woven from goat hair resulting in a coarse, durable fabric of undyed brownish black with dyed yarns used for the designs. The LACMA textile is unusual in terms of its large size and its mostly complete design, which exceptionally includes a cross. The cross indicates a Christian context, perhaps the Coptic faith, still in existence today.

2025

Related Unframed

On view:

Geffen Galleries

No image

Title: Textile Fragment
Culture: Coptic
Place Made: Egypt
Date Made: 4th-6th century
Medium: Goat-hair plain weave with supplementary-weft patterning
Dimensions: 18 × 34 1/2 in. (45.72 × 87.63 cm)
Credit Line: Costume Council Fund
Accession Number: M.70.23.2
Classification: Textiles
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: While it is impossible to determine at present how this handsome textile once functioned, we can propose with some degree of certainty a general date and provenance based on closely related excavated examples. Textiles sharing the same material, technique, and color scheme have been uncovered at a number of sites along the Nile in Egypt, dating to the Late Antique period. Like the LACMA textile, they were woven from goat hair resulting in a coarse, durable fabric of undyed brownish black with dyed yarns used for the designs. The LACMA textile is unusual in terms of its large size and its mostly complete design, which exceptionally includes a cross. The cross indicates a Christian context, perhaps the Coptic faith, still in existence today.

2025