Commercial Movement & Social Lives of Islamic Textiles in Medieval Iberia

Portland State University Art History presents Maria Judith Feliciano, researcher, CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), for a guest lecture titled “On the Commercial Movement and Social Lives of Islamic Textiles in Medieval Iberia."

The commercial circulation of sumptuous textiles from the Mediterranean and Central Asia has been documented in various Iberian contexts since well before the foundation of the caliphal court at Córdoba in 929. Indeed, the successful commercialization of a great variety of textile products across the Iberian geography characterizes Iberian luxury consumption throughout the medieval period. An exploration of the textile workshops, merchants and intermediaries, patterns of exchange and distribution, and, of course, the textiles' multiple lives and uses in various Iberian contexts reveals a refined and discerning textile culture that was not defined by a Christian-Muslim divide. Rather, it speaks of an increasingly complex medieval system of commercial exchange that supplied markets with saleable goods and of a diverse and discerning consumer base that knew exactly what it wanted.

María Judith Feliciano is Investigadora Científica at the Art History Department of Spain's Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid). She specializes in the visual culture of the late medieval and early modern Iberian world with a focus on the influence of the arts of Islam in the artistic developments of Peninsular and Viceregal American societies.

Free and open to the public.

Host or Publisher Portland State University Art History