The “Mongol” Cloud Collar of the Serbian Despot John Oliver: An Historical and Iconographic Investigation
This paper examines the “cloud collars” of the Serbian nobleman John Oliver (c. 1310–1356) as portrayed in the monastery of Saint Gabriel of Lesnovo in present-day Serbia. The collar became part of Mongol fashion across Eurasia during the fourteenth century, but its origin can be traced back to the seventh-century Central Asian Buddhist context. Although a great number of Mongol textiles and Mongol-like textiles produced in Italy circulated during the late middle ages, not a single material or visual example of a cloud collar has been found in Western Europe until now. In this article, we adopt an interdisciplinary approach to engage in a historical analysis of textile trading across the Balkans and a visual study of Central Asian and Persian images. We argue that Oliver’s collars were acquired through the Mongol Ilkhanate of Persia to reaffirm Oliver’s prestige as sebastokrator and Despot at the Serbian court in charge of the borders.
Copyright (c) 2022 Mariachiara Gasparini
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Copyright (c) 2022 Mariachiara Gasparini
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
