The embroidered pattern of tulips and foliate interlace imitates Ottoman silks and embroideries. This piece represents the neck opening and yoke of a phelonion, a poncho-like vestment worn by priests and bishops. It was likely embroidered in Russia as the upper part of a vestment made from a contrasting woven silk (now lost) imported from either Italy or the Ottoman Empire.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Cope Collar
Date:17th century
Geography:Made in Russia, probably Moscow
Medium:Silk; embroidered with metal wrapped thread
Dimensions:H. 13 1/4 in. (33.7 cm) W. 32 1/4 in. (81.9 cm) D. 2 in. (with insert)
Classification:Textiles-Costumes
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1917
Accession Number:17.157
Cope Collar
Ottoman silks, whether produced for the luxury market or specifically for the Church with Christian motifs, were made into religious vestments in many parts of Europe. In Russia these vestments were often embellished with locally made embroidered cuffs and collars.[1] The Russian embroideries were typically completed in gold and silver metal-wrapped thread on a ground of black or crimson velvet, and often in a style closely related to the Ottoman textiles to which they were attached, including the characteristic motifs of carnations, tulips, and pomegranates flowering from scrolling vines. Other Russian embroideries, however, have entirely unrelated geometric ornaments incorporating pearls and silver-gilt plaques.[2]
This collar has been detached from the cope that it once adorned. In the Russian Orthodox Church the cope took a slightly different form from the semicircular vestments used in western Europe (MMA 14.67 and 1976.12). With an attached collar of this kind, the Russian style of cope would have been donned by placing the head through the collar, and the plackets on the front of the garment would have stayed in place next to each other without the need for a fastening device such as a morse. This construction also obviated the inclusion of the orphrey, the embroidered band located along the straight edge of a Western-style cope.
The ground of this collar is a red silk satin rather than a velvet. It has been embroidered with gold tulip-bearing vine that forms a trellis enclosing serrated silver leaves with golden crosses. Additional touches of blue and green are found at the center of the tulips and leaves. Other vestments with Ottoman-style embroidery include a dalmatic in the collection of the Kremlin Armory Museum, Moscow, and several copes in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.[3]
Marika Sardar in [Peck 2013]
Footnotes:
1. Walter B. Denny is responsible for the new identification of this hood, previously considered Armenian, eighteenth century. See Denny in Denny, Walter B., and Sumru Belger Krody. The Sultan's Garden: The Blossoming of Ottoman Art. Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, 2012, pp. 170–71, no. 55 (but there the ground is incorrectly identified as velvet).
2. For several examples, see Atasoy, Nurhan, Walter B. Denny, Louise W. Mackie, and Hulya Tezcan. Ipek: The Crescent and the Rose; Imperial Ottoman Silks and Velvets. London: Azimuth Editions, 2001, pp. 249–50.
3. For the Kremlin Armory Museum dalmatic, see Levykin, Alexey Konstantinovich, et al., The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in the Moscow Kremlin. Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2009, pp. 12, 122–23, 134, no. 62, and Atasoy, Nurhan and Lâle Uluc, Impressions of Ottoman Culture in Europe, 1453–1699. Istanbul: Armaggan Publications, 2012, p. 92. For the State Hermitage Museum copes, see the latter publication, pp. 80, 89, 92.
[ Indjoudjian Frères, Paris, until 1917; sold to MMA]
Washington. Textile Museum. "The Sultan's Garden: Floral Style in Ottoman Textiles," September 21, 2012–March 10, 2013.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800," September 9, 2013–January 5, 2014, no. 63.
Denny, Walter B., and Sumru Berger Krody. The Sultan's Garden: the Blossoming of Ottoman Art. Washington: Textile Museum, 2012. no. 53, pp. 170–71, ill.
Peck, Amelia, ed. Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013. no. 63, p. 218, ill. (color).
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