Embroidered Stola (1700s): Art, History and Details

Embroidered Stola (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Sheaves of wheat and bunches of grapes, symbols of bread and wine in the Mass, are embroidered with silver-metal thread amid scrolling leaves on the green silk-damask ground. Liturgical colors—white, red, green, and black, purple, or blue—mandated by Pope Innocent III in the late 1100s were widely ignored by the 1700s, replaced primarily by a lavish use of gold, silver, and pastel silk thread embroidered on white silk fabrics. Long matching stoles were worn under the chasuble in styles that identified deacons, priests, and bishops.

Object facts

• Title: Embroidered Stola
• Date: 1700s
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: Silk and silver thread on silk damask ground; embroidery
• Dimensions: Overall: 213.3 x 24.8 cm (84 x 9 3/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Ecclesiastical
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1916.1431

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade

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.