Chasuble

Though, at first glance, this chasuble– the tabard-like garment worn by a Catholic priest during church services– resembles sixteenth-century work, it can be attributed to artisans working in the mid-nineteenth century. The velvet is thin, low quality and relatively modern; gold-colored braid has been stitched to it to evoke the much more complicated multiple-piled patterning of a Renaissance 'cloth of gold'. The embroidery of the central orphrey panel is well-executed, using the same techniques as much earlier works, but the designs reveal a nineteenth-century sweetness in their aesthetic, especially facial features, and the raw materials are, again, of much lower grade quality, resulting in the degradation around the chest area, a result of wear-and-tear from when this was worn by the priest.