A Mamluk wool tunic fragment, Egypt or North Africa, 14th century, on a blue linen ground,...

Leopold Iklé was born into a textile family in Hamburg in 1838 and from the age of 15 worked as a travelling salesman for the family firm of Iklé Freres with branches in St Gall, Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna and New York specialising in machine laces. He was always a serious student of historic textiles. Eventually his collection expanded from a box in his office to fill his home in St Gall. In 1904 he gave a substantial donation to the Industrie und Gewerbe Museum in St Gall. After his death in 1922, a major part of his collection was auctioned in Zürich. 

An unusual fragment of wool embroidery in coloured threads on a blue linen ground, probably the decorative front panel of a tunic. The wool embroidery is in counted thread embroidery of red, light blue and green threads forming geometric and floral motifs arranged horizontally in rows. alternating with couched metallic thread embroidery forming roundels and flower-heads. The decoration is further enriched by larger motifs of floral spray to the top, and bold geometric shapes such as the prominent red zigzag shape surmounting the regular rows executed in a combination of both techniques. The couched motifs to the centre may indicate an opening to the tunic. 

This textile comes from the famous collection of Leopold Iklé (1838-1922), a prominent scholar, student and avid collector of ancient textiles who was born into a textile family in Hamburg. His collection was his only luxury. When people pointed out he ought to buy himself a motorcar in view of his failing health, he said that for the money he would rather buy a few nice pieces of lace. In 1904 Iklé gave a substantial group of textiles from his collection to the Industrie und Gewerbe Musuem in St. Gall.

Leopold's eldest son Fritz (1877-1946) had always taken a great interest in his father's textile collection and helped him choose and organise the pieces. After Leopold's death, Fritz built up his own collection, starting with the part that he inherited in 1922 and purchasing most of the textiles that had passed to his brothers. Fritz became and expert in antique textiles consulted by many museums in Europe. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive research into early textiles. He arranged an exhibition to illustrate this research containing many samples from his collection. His loans to his exhibition were donated to the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Basle. 

The dating and identification of this textile begins with the written label note on the reverse (Iklé no. 4478). According to Iklé, the textile was found in an archaeological dig in Egypt and he has catalogued this textile as Fatimid and dates it to the twelfth century. However, Ruth Barnes has noted that the technique suggests a later date than Fatimid and in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum all the counted thread embroideries, the general appearance of the textile suggests a North African provenance. Couching, the other embroidery technique employed on the textile is also common on Mamluk embroideries. These factors combined with the location of its discovery allow us to ascribe a Mamluk provenance to this very unusual embroidery fragment.