2-728-049 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Embroidered Sleeve from a Dalmatic, 1500-1525. This sleeve belonged to a tunic-shaped ecclesiastical vestment, or dalmatic. In this scene, Christ is accompanied by apostles while he washes Peter’s feet. Gold thread dominates here in the prestigious shaded gold technique, its brilliance varying based on the amount of silk thread crossing over it. Its superb quality could only have been achieved by a master embroiderer after a good painter’s design. Silk stitches only form the heads and areas showing flesh. The newly fashionable scrolling acanthus border was probably influenced by the Italian painter Raphael’s adaptation of ornament excavated from late antique-period houses in Rome.