Refine your search

The results of your search are listed below alongside the search terms you entered on the previous page. You can refine your search by amending any of the parameters in the form and resubmitting it.

Select all Deselect all Add selection to lightbox
Large Small
Thumbnails per page
Edward the Confessor(1003 – 5 January 1066), also known as Saint Edward the Confessor, was among the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England, and usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066.<br/><br/> Between 1042 and 1052 Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey in London to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was not completed until around 1090 but was consecrated on 28 December 1065.<br/><br/> The only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is found in the Bayeux Tapestry.
William the Conqueror was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. A descendant of the Viking Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward.<br/><br/> After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England six years later. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands and by difficulties with his eldest son Robert.
The elaborate tapestry-woven mandala illustrates Indo-Himalayan imagery introduced to China along with the advent of Buddhism. At the centre is the mythological Mount Meru, represented by an inverted pyramid topped by a lotus, a Buddhist symbol of purity. Traditional Chinese images for the sun (a three-legged bird) and moon (a rabbit) appear at the mountain’s base.<br/><br/> The landscape vignettes at the cardinal directions represent the four continents of Indian mythology but follow the artistic conventions of Chinese-style landscapes. The floral border, with the four vases in the four corners, parallels the imagery of central Tibet, particularly monasteries with ties to the Yuan court in Beijing.
Edward the Confessor(1003 – 5 January 1066), also known as Saint Edward the Confessor, was among the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England, and usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066.<br/><br/> Between 1042 and 1052 Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey in London to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was not completed until around 1090 but was consecrated on 28 December 1065.<br/><br/> The only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is found in the Bayeux Tapestry.
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and an eagle's talons as its front feet. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature.<br/><br/> The griffin was also thought of as king of the creatures. Griffins are known for guarding treasure and priceless possessions. In antiquity it was a symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine.
This exotic scene from China features market traders beneath a pagoda selling silks, birds, spices, porcelain, fans and other Eastern riches. Wealthy shoppers appear in fine robes, escorted on rickshaws. Interestingly, a camel is depicted with a howdah and a parasol for the use of a rich merchant.<br/><br/> Boucher never visited China. It is thought he produced this tapestry on a Beauvais loom by replicating designs from imported Oriental porcelain and from sketches drawn by Dutchman Arnoldus Montanus during his voyage to Japan in the 17th century.
In this tale from the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, God was dissatisfied with the sins of mankind and he decided to purge the earth of every person except the righteous Noah and his wife.<br/><br/> God instructed Noah to build an ark and to save two of each earthly creature on board. Noah complied, and as soon as the ark was built, God flooded the earth and killed everyone except Noah and his wife.<br/><br/> After the waters receded, God appeared before Noah—as depicted in this scene on a huge wool and silk tapestry—and made a covenant: to protect Noah and his family, and allow them to inherit the earth.
The ruins of Niya (simplified Chinese: 尼雅遗址; traditional Chinese: 尼雅遺址; pinyin: Níyǎ Yízhǐ), is an archaeological site located about 115 km (71 mi) north of modern Minfeng Town (also called Niya) on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin in modern-day Xinjiang, China. The ancient site was known in its native language as Cadota, and in Chinese during the Han Dynasty as Jingjue (Chinese: 精絕; pinyin: Jīngjué). Numerous ancient archaeological artifacts have been uncovered at the site.<br/><br/> Niya was once a major commercial center on an oasis on the southern branch of the Silk Road in the southern Taklamakan Desert. During ancient times camel caravans would cut through, carrying goods from China to Central Asia.
The Sampul tapestry is a woolen wall-hanging that was found in Sampul, near Khotan, in the Tarim Basin inside a 3rd-2nd century BCE mass grave.<br/><br/> The tapestry depicts a soldier, probably Greek, and a Centaur. It is probably a Greek work from Central Asia (Greco-Bactria) and uses more than 24 threads of different colors in a typical western technique.<br/><br/> The soldier wears a tunic with rosette motifs. His headband could be a diadem, the symbol of kingship in the Hellenistic world, as represented on Macedonian and other Greek coins. The presence of the Centaur as a motif, a typical element of Greek mythology, floral motifs, and the realistic rendering further reinforce the identification of the soldier as Greek. The tapestry was, curiously, fashioned into a pair of trousers, indicating that it may have been used as a decorative trophy.<br/><br/> The existence of this tapestry tends to suggest that contacts between the Hellenistic kingdoms of Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, at the edge of the Chinese world occurred from around the 3rd century BCE.<br/><br/>
Loulan was an ancient kingdom based around an important oasis city already known in the 2nd century BCE on the northeastern edge of the Lop Desert. Loulan was an ancient kingdom along the Silk Road. In 108 BCE, the Han Dynasty forces defeated the armies of the Loulan kingdom and made it into a tributary state. In 77 BCE, Loulan came under the control of the Han Dynasty and was given the Chinese name of Shanshan. The site is now completely surrounded by desert. Gaochang is the site of an ancient oasis city built on the northern rim of the inhospitable Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China. A busy trading center, it was a stopping point for merchant traders traveling on the Silk Road. The ruins are located 30 km southeast of modern Turpan. Gaochang is called Karakhoja or Qarakhoja in Uighur. The archaeological site is also known in early published reports as Chotscho, Khocho, or Qočo.
This tapestry probably dates from the Turkish Tulunid dynasty.The designs reflect both the local Coptic tradition and finer silk fabrics of the type that was made for the Byzantine and Sasanian courts. A stylized tree of life is surrounded by sphinxes and lions framed by a medallion.
The Sampul tapestry is a woolen wall-hanging that was found in Sampul, near Khotan, in the Tarim Basin inside a 3rd-2nd century BCE mass grave.<br/><br/> The tapestry depicts a soldier, probably Greek, and a Centaur. It is probably a Greek work from Central Asia (Greco-Bactria) and uses more than 24 threads of different colors in a typical western technique.<br/><br/> The soldier wears a tunic with rosette motifs. His headband could be a diadem, the symbol of kingship in the Hellenistic world, as represented on Macedonian and other Greek coins. The presence of the Centaur as a motif, a typical element of Greek mythology, floral motifs, and the realistic rendering further reinforce the identification of the soldier as Greek. The tapestry was, curiously, fashioned into a pair of trousers, indicating that it may have been used as a decorative trophy.<br/><br/> The existence of this tapestry tends to suggest that contacts between the Hellenistic kingdoms of Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, at the edge of the Chinese world occurred from around the 3rd century BCE.<br/><br/>
The East India Company, which became the British East India Company after the 1707 Treaty of Union, was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The Company was granted an English Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. After a rival English company challenged its monopoly in the late 17th century, the two companies were merged in 1708 to form the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), colloquially referred to as John Company.<br/><br/> The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea and opium. The Company also came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions, to the exclusion, gradually, of its commercial pursuits; it effectively functioned as a megacorporation. Company rule in India, which effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, lasted until 1858, when, following the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Crown assumed direct administration of India in the new British Raj. The Company itself was finally dissolved on 1 January 1874, as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act.