Chasuble with Orphrey Band (1500–1520): Art, History and Details

Chasuble with Orphrey Band (1500–1520) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The English adopted a simpler style of embroidering vestments suitable for mass production around 1500. Isolated motifs, often floral, were embroidered on plain velvet, as in this ecclesiastical chasuble. The orphrey, or embroidered band, in the center depicts Saints Peter, John the Evangelist, and Andrew, identified by their names and attributes (top to bottom). Most of the surface is covered with gold thread sewn down by silk thread passing over it in different densities to create the effect of modeling. Silk thread was also used to embroider areas of skin and hair (mostly disintegrated).

Object facts

• Title: Chasuble with Orphrey Band
• Date: 1500–1520
• Culture: England, London (embroidery) and Italy, Florence (velvet), early 16th century
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: Silk, gold thread, sequins; appliqué, embroidery: couching stitches Velvet: solid pile, silk; embroidery: or nué (shaded gold)
• Dimensions: Overall: 122.5 x 74 cm (48 1/4 x 29 1/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Ecclesiastical
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1947.2

Collection credit

Gift of Walter C. and Alvin W. Littwitz in memory of their father, Max Littwitz

Further reading listed by the museum

• Young, Bonnie. "Opus Anglicanum." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, no. 7 (1971): 291-98. Accessed December 20, 2020.
• Staniland, Kay. Embroiderers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
• Monnas, Lisa. 1994. "Opus Anglicanum and Renaissance Velvet: The Whalley Abbey Vestments". Textile History 25:1.

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.