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ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEXTILES

cotton connections

DANIEL SHAFFER

The Belgian port of Antwerp is home to a little-known corporate collection of very early textiles and costume. They belong to Katoen Natie, a privately-owned multinational with its origins in the 19th century cotton trade. The hallmarks of the collection are a cautious acquisitions policy and an ongoing commitment to systematic scientific analysis of its textile treasures.

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BEST-KNOWN FOR DIAMONDS and the work of the Flemish baroque master Peter Paul Rubens, Antwerp is also home to a secret gem of a different ilk, the Katoen Natie Collection of ancient textiles from the Near East and Central Asia. As its name indicates, Katoen Natie N.V.began life in 1855 as a cotton trading company. Since 1945, and in particular over the past decade, the business has diversified its activities, successfully reinventing itself as a worldwide supplier of “value-added logistics, semi-industrial and high-tech services”. However, the firm’s strong historical connections with cloth have been preserved in the form of a highly focused and steadilyexpanding academic collection of mainly archaeological textiles, acquired in close co-operation with Katoen Natie’s scientific adviser, Professor Antoine De Moor, who is perhaps best known for his co-authorship in 1999 of the catalogue of the Coptic tapestries in the Vatican Library’s R. Pfister Collection. The textiles, comprising Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic period hangings and garments from Egypt (one of the largest and most interesting collections in

1Late Roman or Coptic hanging fragment with two orants, Egypt, ca. 4th-6th century

AD . Linen ground with supplementary wool and linen weft loop pile, 0.50 x 0.61m (1'7 1 ⁄ 2 " x 2'0"). Katoen Natie Collection, Antwerp, 1478-01 2Late Roman or Coptic hanging fragment with a lion, birds and swastikas, Egypt, ca. 4th-6th century

AD . Linen with supplementary wool and linen weft loop pile, 0.66 x 0.96m (2'2" x 3'1 3 ⁄ 4 "). Katoen Natie Collection, Antwerp, 241

HALI ISSUE 151 85