Cloth with One Figure of a Woman Carrying a Cross Surrounded by Floral and Vegetal Patterns (1700s): Art, History and Details

Cloth with One Figure of a Woman Carrying a Cross Surrounded by Floral and Vegetal Patterns (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The only figure represented on this large lace cloth is located in the center. The figure is a woman, shown in profile, carrying a cross, standing on top of a creature or within a vessel shaped like a creature.

Object facts

• Title: Cloth with One Figure of a Woman Carrying a Cross Surrounded by Floral and Vegetal Patterns
• Date: 1700s
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Lace
• Technique: Bleached linen (est.): needle lace, filet/lacis (knotted ground and darned in two directions), alternating reticella squares (open cutwork) and bobbin lace edging
• Dimensions: Overall: 196.7 x 130.6 cm (77 7/16 x 51 7/16 in.)
• Collection: T - Lace
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1936.94

A detail from the museum

The large size and square shape suggest that this textile would likely have been used as a table cloth.

Collection credit

The Frances McIntosh Sherwin Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Underhill, Gertrude. "The Frances McIntosh Sherwin Collection of Lace." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 23, no. 4 (1936): 53-54.

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.