Silk links faraway worlds

Among the notable examples he cites are a sacred skull relic wrapped in Chinese silk damask at Turku Cathedral in Finland, and a ceremonial robe decorated with an eagle, made from Chinese twill damask and once used as imperial regalia. A single motif — such as the Chinese character shou (longevity) — now appears in fragments scattered across London, Toronto, New York, Berlin, Cairo and Doha, as tangible proof of silk's global reach.

From time to time, pieces that were cut apart and dispersed across continents — often by antique dealers seeking separate buyers — can be reconnected, at least virtually.

"Last year, using pattern reconstruction, we brought four fragments of silk damask from the Textile Museum at The George Washington University together with another piece from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It became clear that they had once belonged together," Zhao says.

Pattern reconstruction does not involve physically rejoining fragments. Instead, researchers digitally match repeated decorative motifs across different pieces of cloth. Because many silks feature repeating patterns, partial motifs from separate fragments can be aligned to re-create the original design layout. Once restored, the pattern strongly suggests that the surviving pieces originated from a single, larger textile, even if most of it has long since been lost.

The four fragments now held by the Textile Museum were acquired by George Hewitt Myers — the American businessman and scholar-collector — in 1931, 1934 and 1951. Their widely separated purchase dates quietly reveal just how far a single silk textile could travel.