Nancy Pence Britton

Nancy Pence Britton is described on the title page of her book as formerly assistant in the Department of Textiles of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; she wrote A Study of Some Early Islamic Textiles (1938). ¹ In her foreword she thanks Gertrude Townsend for help in preparing the manuscript. ²

• She finds early textile inscriptions (eighth to eleventh centuries) simpler and more precise, and later ones (from the eleventh century) more elaborate and debased, and notes that naskh is unusual on textiles before the twelfth century. ³
• She explains the change in tiraz after the reign of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir (1036–1094) by the caliph's diminished importance: tiraz became a short pious formula endlessly repeated in debased script among scrolled bands, which she sees as anticipating late Mamluk wood-carving and metalwork. ⁴