Silk

Categorized as Terms

Silk

Amanda Phillips

Related Terms:

  • Ikat (tied-and-dyed fabric)
  • Loom (frame for weaving)
  • Suzani (type of embroidery)
  • Tiraz (textile with inscription)
  • Velvet (type of luxury compound weave)

Related Khamseen Videos:

Sam Bowker, “The Egyptian Tentmakers and the Art of Khayamiya,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 28 August 2020.

Sumru Belger Krody, “Prayer Carpets,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 11 May 2021.

Richard McGregor, “Hajj Materials and Rites from Egypt,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 9 February 2021.

Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, “Craft and Aesthetics in Byzantine and Early Islamic Textiles,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 19 October 2020.

References:

İnalcık, Halil. “Ḥarīr. (2).” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 16 October 2022.

Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th–21st Century. New Haven and London: HALI and Yale University Press, 2015.

Serjeant, R. B. Islamic Textiles: Material for a History up to the Mongol Conquest. Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1972 [Originally published serially in Ars Islamica (Michigan, 1942-51), IX-XVI].

Steensgaard, N. “Ḥarīr (1).” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 16 October 2022.

Wardwell, Anne, and James Watt. When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.

Citation:

Amanda Phillips, “Silk,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 16 May 2023.

Amanda Phillips received her DPhil at Oxford and now teaches Islamic art and material culture at the University of Virginia. She focuses mostly on craft traditions in the Ottoman Empire, and especially textiles and other things made outside the palace. Art and objects are the main topic of her first book Everyday Luxuries (2016). Her second book, Sea Change (2021), argues that textiles twined through every facet of life in the Ottoman Empire, and their study reveals not only the preoccupations and habits of elite and humble subjects alike, but also frameworks of piety, economic thought, collective taste-making, and sensory experience not found in written sources.