Prenda de cabeza de forma semicircular realizada con dos piezas de tejido, la menor colocada en sentido transversal, con ligamento de seda de color salmón con decoración realizada en seda azul, verde, blanca e hilos metálicos de plata y plata sobredorada. La decoración principal se reparte alternándose en bandas, en las que se suceden los ramos vegetales en azul y blanco con león rampante en hilo dorado, con otras en las que aparece el mismo ramo vegetal en este caso verde y un ave empenachada en hilo de plata. Los espacios resultantes se completan con pequeñas ramitas con hojas y frutos que se alternan según la hilera con ovejas adornadas con lazo y pequeños jabalíes.   
La prenda aparece rematada perimetralmente por puntilla de encaje tipo Puntos de España realizada con hilo metálico de plata sobredorada.

The perfectly matched flowing floral design gives this chasuble its distinctive appearance. The sense of liveliness in the beautiful pattern comes from the finely detailed central urn motifs, which incorporate fluting and cross-hatching; the peony blossoms shaded with subtle gradations in color; and the tulip heads that are just beginning to open.

Cubrecáliz realizado con una sola pieza de tejido de lampás con fondo de tafetán de seda marfil y decoración a base de tramas lanzadas en seda verde y marrón y espolinadas en sedas polícromas e hilo metálico de plata sobredorada y lámina también dorada, con las que se crean diversos efectos ornamentales. La decoración que cubre por completo la superficie, se desarrolla a partir de un eje longitudinal de simetría situado en el centro de la pieza donde se sitúa un conjunto vegetal con granadas, flores y hojas que aparece rodeado de guirnaldas de uvas, hojas de parra y motivos florales.  
El interior está cubierto de tejido de tafetán de algodón.

Manga de vestido de imagen de terciopelo cincelado de color granate, decorado con estrechas franjas en las que se alterna el terciopelo liso y el anillado, presentando este último un motivo en zigzag. Bocamanga decorada con aplicación de puntilla de bolillos tipo Puntos de España, realizada con hilo y lámina de plata sobredorada con motivo de florones. Forro interior de tafetán de seda de color beige.

This deep red satin chasuble was embroidered in China. Its slender, A-line shape was common in chasubles of eighteenth-century Spain, where it may have been used.¹ The focal point of the embroidered design is the roundel with a double-headed eagle at the center of the vestment’s front and back. Although the double-headed eagle surmounted by a crown was a symbol of the Habsburg monarchy, here it is purely decorative and tinged with an auspicious Chinese flavor.² Instead of grasping arrows in their talons, as they would in the Habsburg motif, the birds dangle flowering and leafy stems from their beaks. In Chinese textiles auspicious birds frequently hold symbolic flora: a rank badge in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection features a crane that grips a branch bearing both a peach and a peach blossom.³ The front and back of the chasuble are each divided into three vertical sections, separated by narrow embroidered floral trim that also borders the neck and edges.⁴ The central section consists of a series of vertically aligned roundels, floral rosettes, and geometrically decorated vessels resting on stands amid a simple ogival pattern of flowering vines. On each of the two side sections, a graceful design of delicately curving leafy stems emerges from a multicolored cornucopia, a long-standing European motif. Cornucopias are included in at least two other eighteenth-century chasubles embroidered in China, one now in the Metropolitan and the other in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlan, Mexico, and formerly in the Catedral de Mexico—a reminder that there were markets besides Europe for chasubles embroidered in China.⁵ The scrolling pattern of the side panels is punctuated with large flowers, some of which include elements from Chinese decorative arts and others that are unusual from a Chinese perspective—even quite fantastic. The large flowers close to the cornucopias on the front of the garment and flanking the eagle roundel on the back are rather unrefined in technique, featuring dots on their radiating petals and a bold red, white, yellow, and blue coloration that lacks the more subtle shades of light red seen in the smaller flowers nearby, a customary coloration in Chinese embroidery. As dotted petals are fairly common in Indian floral textiles of the eighteenth century but unusual in Chinese examples, these bold flowers and other similarly distinctive blooms may reflect the Chinese embroiderer’s attempt to mimic the Indian floral patterns that were so popular in international trade. [Melinda Watt, adapted from Interwoven Globe, The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800/ edited by Amelia Peck; New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2013] 1. Johnstone, High Fashion in the Church, p. 109.2. Some examples of purely decorative double-headed eagles are found in Portuguese collections. See, for example, the detail of an eighteenth-century colcha in Pacheco Ferreira, As alfaias bordadas sinoportuguesas, p. 158, fig. 108.3. Metropolitan Museum, acc. no. 36.65.10. Doubly auspicious, the crane represents the highest rank for a civil official, and both crane and peach are associated with longevity.4. Another chasuble, embroidered in China and now in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection (acc. no. 61.227), also has a tripartite division and a similar embroidered trim.5. For the Metropolitan’s example, see note 4 above; for the chasuble in Mexico, see Mayer et al., Raiment for the Lord’s Service, pp. 274–75, no. 140.

1541, France

1541, France