Woven Silk Fragment Supplemented with Drawing

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Fragment: 14th century; drawing: 19th century

Paul Schulze (German, 1854-1928)
Italy and Germany

Design professor and museum professional Paul Schulze created this compelling work by augmenting a fragment of 14th-century Italian silk through drawing. Schulze used his expertise to speculatively “re-create” the textile fragment’s full pattern. Through this informed yet imaginative interpretation, Schulze has enabled viewers to appreciate the composition and motifs of a lost original.

Status: On View, Gallery 58
Department: Textiles

Artist: Paul Schultze
Title: Woven Silk Fragment Supplemented with Drawing
Place: Italy (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1301–1400
Medium: Watercolor with opaque and metallic gold watercolor over pen and crimson and black ink with a swatch of compound twill satin, plain weave, on brown wove paper
Dimensions: 47.9 × 37.8 cm (18 7/8 × 14 7/8 in.); Textile fragment mounted in upper proper right corner: 22.4 × 22.6 cm (8 13/16 × 8 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Martin A. Ryerson through the Antiquarian Society
Reference Number: 1909.147
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/63574/manifest.json

Melinda Watt, “Fragmentary Understanding: Textiles in the Encyclopedic Museum,” in On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival, eds. Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai, L Vinebaum, and Anne Wilson, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), 64, fig. 3 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Elizabeth F. Cheney and Agnes Allerton Textile Galleries, On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival, Sept. 6, 2025–Mar. 15, 2026, cat.

Martin A. Ryerson (1856-1932), Chicago [Ledger Book 1909, 258]; given through the Antiquarian Society to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1909.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.