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Illustration from a Coptic textile
Roundel with Mounted Warriors, Egypt, 6th century.
Cooper Union Museum.
Decorative roundel with two horsemen. Wool on linen.
Egyptian, 6th century. Cooper Union Museum.
Plate 33, Early decorative textiles by Volbach, W. Fritz
pp.57 & 63:
A whole series of textiles, showing two horsemen on a red ground riding away from or towards each other, ready for battle with sword and bow in hand, are probably modelled on Syrian originals such as the horsemen fabrics in Maastricht or London. In the roundel in Washington, the rider with the sword being crowned by two genii has been identified as Alexander. Here the 5th- or 6th-century artist was modelling his work on earlier sources like the Aachen pulpit or the bone reliefs in Baltimore and the Benaki Museum in Athens. In one fabric in the Cooper Union Museum in New York the rider is by himself. The closely related and well-preserved panel in Washington (plate 34) shows two horsemen fighting, as does another, very similar piece in the Cooper Union Museum (plate 33). A square purple panel with a rider design in London (plate 42) shows how in later years, certainly under Arab rule, this motif became so completely stylised as to be little more than an ornamental device.
