Rubelli | Persiano

Paired animals face each other inside roundels, separated by a tree of life. The arrangement is early medieval and it travelled: cloth of this design dressed the papal court at Avignon and the imperial and Byzantine courts, where it worked as a statement of rank rather than as decoration. Only a particular sort of person was permitted to own it.

The velvet is chiselled, cut and looped areas set against one another, and a metallic weft picks out individual details of the ornament rather than running through the whole ground. That makes the drawing legible in a way surface contrast alone would not manage.

A 60.5 cm repeat on a 60 cm width, so one roundel effectively fills the cloth. Silk pile on silk and cotton at 280 g, two colourways, hand-woven at Cucciago at a few centimetres a day. For a cushion, a panel or a chair back. Made in Italy.