<div class="description">
This costly royal silk with extensive gold thread was woven in Egypt and gifted or exported to Spain where it was pieced into this well-known mantle for a statue of the Virgin for religious festivals, and to Italy where a similar silk clothed the Madonna in <em>Enthroned Madonna with Saints </em>by Bambino Vispo in about 1430. This sturdy brocaded silk was also woven in a lighter weight silk damask on a draw loom with a mirror-image repeat; therefore, the Arabic inscription in the medallions reads both forward and backward, "Glory to our master, the sultan, the king." The inscribed lobed roundels say "The sultan, the king."</div>
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