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Category: 16th century
This week, we continue our exploration of late medieval goldwork embroidery from the Netherlands. I made an exciting discovery on a cope kept at the Dommmuseum Frankfurt in Germany. The Dutch dalmatics I showed you last week ended up in a museum collection in Italy after they were bought at auction. This week’s Dutch cope…
This month, we will focus on late medieval goldwork embroidery from the Netherlands. These can be found in collections and church treasuries all over the world. Like Opus anglicanum in earlier times, late medieval goldwork embroidery from the Low Countries was highly sought after. The embroidery workshops in major centres such as Utrecht, Amsterdam and…
Last week, we examined the vestments made for Pope Nicholas V. Today, we continue our explorations of medieval goldwork from Tuscany, Italy with a cope hood made in Florence in the first quarter of the 16th century. The design of the Coronation of the Virgin is attributed to Sandro Botticelli (AD 1445-1510). Whether this means…
Last week and the week before, we looked at beautifully pearl-embroidered mitres from Italy and France. Today, we will look at probably the most spectacular pearl-embroidered mitre of them all: the mitre made by Hans Plock for Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg in AD 1514 in Halle, Germany. The piece is permanently displayed at the Rüstkammer…
In the 80s, we had an art historian in the Netherlands who started to systematically trawl through historical records to find late medieval and early modern embroiderers and embroidery guilds. She published a couple of great articles on the topic. However, the large overview publication she promised in her 1987 article never saw the light…
Last week, we looked at five different embroidered versions of the same Adoration of the Magi design. By changing materials and embroidery techniques, these late 15th and early 16th century embroideries look quite different from each other. The scene was part of four chasubles and a loose chasuble cross. But what about the other scenes…
If you have followed this blog for a while, you already know that medieval goldwork embroidery was mass-produced. The designs were used more than once, sometimes even on the same vestment. Survived have mainly the simpler single-figure orphreys or the, possibly block-printed, naive embroidered scenes from Germany. But that’s not all. Even very complex scenes…
Last week, I wrote about the embroidered late medieval vestments on display in the St Nicolai Church in Kalkar. We looked in depth at the richly embroidered chasuble donated by Wolter van Riswick in AD 1530. This week, we’ll examine a splendidly embroidered cope and dalmatic, also kept in the church in Kalkar. These vestments…
Last year, I visited the St Nicolai Church in Kalkar. The church inventory lists more than 100 medieval vestments in AD 1543.