See more objects with the tag landscape, nature, contrast, movement.

Object Timeline

1920

  • Work on this object began.

1930

  • Work on this object ended.

1954

  • We acquired this object.

2003

2015

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2024

  • You found it!

Textile, Falcon Hunt

This is a Textile. It was designed by Herman A. Elsberg. It is dated 1920–1930 and we acquired it in 1954. Its medium is silk warp and weft, gold thread is s-wrapped foil, over 2-ply z-twisted cotton and its technique is satin weave with supplementary weft. It is a part of the Textiles department.

Herman Elsberg was a textile designer, scholar, and collector. He specialized in the fashionable adaptation of historic patterns for interior design. He also owned a textile mill in Lyon, France where this striking furnishing fabric was hand woven on a Jacquard loom. His inspiration for this pattern came from drawings found in the margins of Persian manuscripts. The orientation of the leaping gazelles and menacing falcons are reversed in each interlocking repeat, creating a strong sense of motion. The animals are partially obscured by clusters of highly formalized leafless saplings, giving this traditional theme a distinctively modern feel.

It is credited Gift of Jean Mailey.

  • Textile (USA)
  • Warp x Weft: 137 x 90 cm (53 15/16 x 35 7/16 in.).
  • Gift of Ethel Stein in memory of Abbo Ostrowsky.
  • 1996-127-2

Our curators have highlighted 7 objects that are related to this one. Here are three of them, selected at random:

  • Sidewall (USA)
  • machine-printed.
  • Gift of Suzanne Lipschutz.
  • 1991-89-134
  • Textile
  • silk, gilded parchment wrapped around silk core.
  • Gift of John Pierpont Morgan.
  • 1902-1-780

Its dimensions are

H x W: 157.2 × 102.2 cm (5 ft. 1 7/8 in. × 40 1/4 in.)

Cite this object as

Textile, Falcon Hunt; Designed by Herman A. Elsberg (American, 1869–1938); France; silk warp and weft, gold thread is s-wrapped foil, over 2-ply z-twisted cotton; H x W: 157.2 × 102.2 cm (5 ft. 1 7/8 in. × 40 1/4 in.); Gift of Jean Mailey; 1954-170-7

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18400637/ |title=Textile, Falcon Hunt |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=26 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>