INDIA, ASSAM, FOR THE TIBETAN MARKET, EARLY 16TH CENTURY

Textiles produced in Assam are extremely rare and fragments have generally only survived in Tibet. Evolving out of Mongol period textile preferences, they combine Indian, Eastern Iranian, Central Asian and Chinese aspects in technique and style. The eight-legged winged griffins (yalis) are a particularly noteworthy aspect. Paired in combat and encircled by scrolling vines, they are inspired by animal roundels from Sassanian Iran, yet the entwined scrolls follow Yuan period stylistic conventions, combined with highly ornamented scrolling foliage and leaf borders of Indian origin; two similar animals atop an elephant appear on a fragment of samite weave, dated to the 15th century, in the AEDTA collection, cf. K. Riboud et. al., Samit & Lampas. Motifs indien - Indian motifs, 1998, p. 66f., where the author further refers to the murals of Alchi with lions atop elephants supporting the mandorla as a related motif, see R. Goepper, Alchi, 1996, pp. 43-44; compare with another example of a canopy with a large central lotus medallion, but of smaller size and lacking the animals, in the Khalili Collection (accession no. 15008, unpublished).
The main warps and the ground wefts are bound in a five-end satin, the pattern wefts in a weft-faced 2 and 1 twill.
The dating is confirmed by a radiocarbon test of the Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, sample no. R28073.