Cloth of Silver, Cut Voided Velvet
Velvets like this were used for clothing, religious vestments, and altar dressings, as well as for wall coverings and cloths of honor. The thick, light-reflecting, tactile pile, which differentiates velvet from other silks, was achieved during the weaving process by using rods or wires to loop up warp threads rather than pull them tight and flat. This sumptuous example, which incorporates glittering strips of silver lamella running from selvedge to selvedge, is of a type popularly described as “cloth of silver” from the sixteenth century onward.
This cloth of silver was displayed in European Textiles and Costume Figures, on view at the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences (visible at far right in the photograph of 1938), and at Walton High School (visible at center right in the photograph of February 9, 1939).
[Elizabeth Cleland, 2020]
This cloth of silver was displayed in European Textiles and Costume Figures, on view at the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences (visible at far right in the photograph of 1938), and at Walton High School (visible at center right in the photograph of February 9, 1939).
[Elizabeth Cleland, 2020]
Artwork Details
- Title: Cloth of Silver, Cut Voided Velvet
- Date: 17th century
- Culture: Italian
- Medium: Silk, silver lamella
- Dimensions: L. 20 x W. 10 inches (50.8 x 25.4 cm)
- Classification: Textiles-Velvets
- Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1909
- Object Number: 09.50.1082
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
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Probably after a model by Lorenzo Vaccaro (Italian, 1653–1706)
late 17th century
ca. 1780
Capodimonte Porcelain Manufactory (Italian, 1740/43–1759)
ca. 1745–50
ca. 1620–40
Attributed to Giuseppe Sanmartino (Italian, 1720–1793)
second half 18th century
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