Sileh Brocaded Cover

Woven textiles traditionally occupied a central role in the lives of the nomadic and seminomadic tribal peoples of Western and Central Asia. Produced mainly from locally available sheep and goat wool, these textiles were used for shelter, clothing, and all manner of household furnishings. This large, flat-woven textile was probably used by its original owners as a floor covering or eating mat on special occasions. It was woven in two sections that were later sewn together down the middle. It features a brocaded design of stylized dragons that ultimately derives from thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Chinese silk textiles. Brocaded coverings of this type are often ascribed to the Shahsavan, a Turkic people who are now found mainly in northwestern Iran. The name Shahsavan means "those who love the Shah," and according to legend, the Shahsavan are descended from tribes who helped the monarch Shah Abbas (1589- 1629) secure the foundations of the Persian Safavid dynasty in the sixteenth century. The Shahsavan tribes include a mix of nomadic, seminomadic, and settled clans, and their weavings have historically been traded over a wide area within the larger Caucasus region.

The cover belongs to a much larger collection of Western and Central Asian tribal textiles that were donated to the AMAM by Elyria, Ohio, businessman Ernie Roberts. An oral tradition attached to the cover says that it was once used to wrap a portion of the famous Pergamon altar when it was shipped from Turkey to Germany in the late nineteenth century. In Germany, the cover came into the possession of an artist named Louis Jacoby, a member of a family who later emigrated to Oberlin. Gertrud Jacoby eventually sold the weaving to the eminent Oberlin art historian Wolfgang Stechow, who in turn sold it to Roberts. Unfortunately, there is no way to confirm this alluring story, but it adds a further element of mystique to the cover's already considerable aesthetic power.