Chasuble Back with Embroidered Orphrey Band (1415–25): Art, History and Details

Chasuble Back with Embroidered Orphrey Band (1415–25) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The chasuble is the main sleeveless outer vestment worn by priests while officiating during Mass. By the 1400s, the chasuble became highly ornamented with embroidered decorative bands called orphreys, often in the shape of a cross, as seen here. This luxurious Italian example features velvet of three colors with lush pile. In Graz, Austria, it was embellished with a locally embroidered orphrey featuring crowns, haloes, and backgrounds of scenes formed with gold thread. The Virgin and Child, and Saints Catherine, Dorothy, Ursula, and Barbara are featured.

Object facts

• Title: Chasuble Back with Embroidered Orphrey Band
• Date: 1415–25
• Culture: Italy (chasuble ground); Austria, Graz (orphrey)
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: Velvet: cut pile and voided; silk, gold and silver thread: embroidery; split and couching stitches
• Dimensions: Overall: 122.2 x 73.7 cm (48 1/8 x 29 in.)
• Collection: T - Ecclesiastical
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1950.85

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Heinemann, Rudolf J., and Adolf Feulner. Aus dem Besitz der Stiftung Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz. Castagnola/Lugano: Villa Favorita, 1949.
• Svec, Evelyn. "A Half Chasuble with Bohemian Embroidery." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 7 (1952): 189-91.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.