Lot 12
12
A LARGE SOGDIAN SILK SAMITE FRAGMENT
A LARGE SOGDIAN SILK SAMITE FRAGMENT
A LARGE SOGDIAN SILK SAMITE FRAGMENT
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A LARGE SOGDIAN SILK SAMITE FRAGMENT

CENTRAL ASIA, 7TH OR 8TH CENTURY

Details
A LARGE SOGDIAN SILK SAMITE FRAGMENT
CENTRAL ASIA, 7TH OR 8TH CENTURY
Woven in red, black, blue and cream silk with one large roundel containing confronted pheasants on a stylised vegetal ground, surrounded by four smaller roundels containing confronted birds, a fragmentary large roundel on the right side, mounted
29 7⁄8 x 41in. (76 x 104cm.)
Provenance
Australian collection by 1998, by repute
With Christian Deydier, Paris, 2011
French private collection since 2019
Literature
Gilles Béguin, Soies d'Asie Centrale, Enigmes et Splendeurs, Paris, 2020
Exhibited
Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie, Cluny, Sur la route de la soie: Étoffes, luxe & pouvoir, 20 June - 2 October 2022

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Lot Essay

Confronted animals often appear in the decorative medallions on Sogdian samite textiles such as this, many of which were intended to be part of robes. The curling tail feathers on this example are similar to those which appear on a silk fragment sold Sotheby's Paris, 14 June 2024, lot 200. Like ours, on that fragment the two birds were positioned on top of a scrolling tree within an intricate border.

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