Guilloche band, from a dalmatic of San Valero (1200s): Art, History and Details

Guilloche band, from a dalmatic of San Valero (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Rarely do medieval silks convey their original luxurious quality with such brilliant gold thread. This fragment is said to have been among relics of Saint Valerio from Lérida Cathedral (in northeast Spain, near Barcelona). An elegant geometric tracery in crimson silk decorates the gold-thread ground, bordered above by four interlacing strands in ivory silk and below by two rows of "figure 8s" woven with gold thread and black silk outlines.

Object facts

• Title: Guilloche band, from a dalmatic of San Valero
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: Spain, probably Almeria
• Type: Textile
• Technique: tapestry weave: silk and gold thread
• Dimensions: Overall: 6.1 x 26.1 cm (2 3/8 x 10 1/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Islamic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1928.650

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sangiorgi, Giorgio. “Oro Tessile.” Dedalo; rassegna d'arte. [Ugo Ojetti 1871-1946]. Milano; Treves, 1920. [Sangiorgi Collection].
• Underhill, Gertrude. "Two Hispano-Moresque Silks from the Vestments of San Valero." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 4 (1929): 68-75. Accessed September 30, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25137205.
• Los Angeles County Museum. 2000 Years of Silk Weaving: An Exhibition Sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum in Collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. 1944.

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.