About This Artwork

Spain

Two Fragments, 15th century

Silk, warp-float faced 4:1 satin weave with plain interlacings of secondary binding warps and supplementary patterning wefts
a: 53.6 x 27.2 cm (21 1/8 x 10 3/4 in.)
b: 51.5 x 18.6 cm (20 1/4 x 7 5/8 in.)
Warp repeat: 17.8 cm (7 in.)
Kufic inscription (translation): I am for pleasure; for pleasure am I / He who beholds me sees joy and delight
Restricted gift of the Needlework and Textile Guild, 1945.216a-b

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, "Two Thousand Years of Silk Weaving," January–March, 1944

The Art Institute of Chicago, Elizabeth F. Cheney and Agnes Allerton Textile Galleries, "European Textile Masterpieces from Coptic Times through the 19th Century," September 27, 1989–January 22, 1990

The Art Institute of Chicago, Elizabeth F. Cheney and Agnes Allerton Textile Galleries, "Textile Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago's Collection," February 17–May 2, 1993

Publication History

Friederich Theodor Paul Sarre. Die Ausstellung von Meisterwerken muhammedanischer Kunst in Munchen, 1910 (Munich, 1912). (Similar piece: Volume 3, Plate 182).

Adele C. Weibel. Two Thousand Years of Silk Weaving, An Exhibition Sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum in Collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts (New York: Weyhe, 1944), no. 137, pl. 38.

Christa Charlotte Mayer. Masterpieces of Western Textiles from The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1969), p. 53, pl. 30.

Christa C. Mayer Thurman. Textiles in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1992), p. 18-19 (Illus.), 143.