Chasuble, Austria
Before mid-18th century

101 x 68 cms

Thought to be commissioned by the Empress Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (German: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780)   She was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions, ruling from 1740 until her death in 1780. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, and Parma She was also named Holy Roman Empress when her husband was elected Holy Roman Emperor. 

Background material, cloth of silver, spun and crushed silver, around 1740, overstitched and brocaded with polychrome and gold thread. Orphrey: brocaded cloth of gold with silver thread embroidery, (spun and crushed), gold (spun and crushed) and polychrome “diamond” silk, gold braid (very rare material, never previously seen by Xavier Petitcol). Gold braid structure, undulating on the edge of the decoration, twisted around the orphreys. Very high-quality Roman style chasuble. The background material is decorated with rivers of lace, ribbons and flowers with bunches of flowers peeking out. The « reversible » weave makes the design perfectly symmetrical on either side of the orphrey. The particularly rich orphreys are decorated with ferns, palms, flowers and fruit from India and a diamond effect produced by using blades of silver.

Xavier Petitcol: This superb chasuble consists of two fabrics certainly from the same workshop, woven in either Lyon or Northern Italy. The chasuble can be dated circa 1740. ~

Of Italian style with V-shaped neck and back column; the front is particularly low-cut and lacking a horizontal bar to suggest a Tau cross. Incredibly sumptuous, this chasuble was part of a Roman-style set made from the same fabrics.

Background Fabric -silver cloth, silver thread, frizzy silver, polychrome silks, twill weave, extra weft (lance) and brocaded -design of two paths following each other (‘a deux Chemins suivi’), called reversible, meaning it may be read the same when turned upside down: undulating palm branches on which a crumpled ribbon with emerging naturalistic flowering branches unfurls. Thanks to the ‘reversible’ design the background fabric of the two sides of the chasuble (on either side of the orphrey) are perfectly symmetrical.

Orphrey Fabric (even richer according to usual standards) -brocaded gold cloth, gold thread, frizzy gold, gold strips, silver thread, frizzy silver, silver strips, polychrome silks. -design also undoubtedly of two paths reversible (but one can only see the column as one path). -a sinuous silver palm resting on a gold ground, with foliage and imaginary flowers partially of natural colours which match the ribbon and the flowers on the background cloth. -the special characteristic of this fabric which has been never seen before on the ribs of the palm is a trompe-oeil of graduated diamond barrettes made with silver strips.