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Fragment of Silk Taffeta with “Rose and Nightingale” Motif
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
A luxurious textile like this would have been used for courtly robes or coats in Safavid Iran. The bird-and-flower motif is known as gul-u-bulbul in Persian, meaning “rose and nightingale.” The motif references the poetic image of a nightingale plaintively singing to an indifferent rose as a metaphor for unrequited human love as well as the soul’s desire for mystical union with the divine.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineFragment of Silk Taffeta with “Rose and Nightingale” Motif, 1700s. Iran, Safavid period (1501–1722). Silk and metallic thread: taffeta, brocaded; overall: 38.1 x 40.6 cm (15 x 16 in.); mounted: 48.3 x 50.8 cm (19 x 20 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Fred R. White, 1943.91
