Cleveland Museum of Art

Embroidered Stola

Date

1700s

Medium

Silk and silver thread on silk damask ground; embroidery

Culture

Italy, 18th century

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Sheaves of wheat and bunches of grapes, symbols of bread and wine in the Mass, are embroidered with silver-metal thread amid scrolling leaves on the green silk-damask ground. Liturgical colors—white, red, green, and black, purple, or blue—mandated by Pope Innocent III in the late 1100s were widely ignored by the 1700s, replaced primarily by a lavish use of gold, silver, and pastel silk thread embroidered on white silk fabrics. Long matching stoles were worn under the chasuble in styles that identified deacons, priests, and bishops.

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