2-725-750 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Chasuble, 1700s. The chasuble’s exquisite symmetrical decoration highlights its central panel where three illusionary gold containers hold skillfully shaded fruit in pastel silk tones. Delicately curving motifs enhance the side panels along with finely stitched strawberries in so-called French knots. This liturgical chasuble and other vestments, worn over a white alb with lace, were embroidered by professional specialists, such as experts who shaded coloured silks or secured gold thread, in early versions of assembly lines that were usually in secular workrooms or in convents. The church or commissioner supplied the raw materials and paid a fee for the work.