It is all in the details

This blog post is taking way longer to write than I intended. Sorry, I fell down a rabbit hole. And then another one :). I will find myself in both holes in the state library in Munich on Friday. What happened? As always, I think I have seen the same embroidery before, but when I look into it more deeply, things turn out not to be as similar as I thought. When we looked at the chasuble with embroidered scenes of the Life of Mary in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg last week, I knew it belonged to a group of similar pieces. Were they all made around the same time in the same place? Or do subtle differences hint at multiple workshops in a much wider production area? Let's have a look.

Görlitzer Sammlungen 61-03b (Leihgabe der Ev. Innenstadtgemeinde im Kulturhistorischen Museum Görlitz)

Diocesan Museum Brixen

Chasuble cross Te 154, Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg.

Vestments with embroidered scenes from the Life of Mary contain different combinations of well-known events in Mary's life. These are usually: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi and Circumcision. Other scenes might be the Presentation at the Temple, the Flight into Egypt, or the Dormition. To aid recognition, the scenes have been standardised. These embroideries were made in the 15th century and the early 16th century. Some embroideries are so similar that they hint at the use of block printing to transfer the design onto the embroidery linen. But how similar is similar?

Above, you see three renditions of the Annunciation. In all three cases, Mary is standing behind a reading desk. However, the designs are so different that they do not stem from the same pricking or printing block. Interestingly, the majority of these embroideries omit the reading desk. This means that these three embroideries were using a similar model book that differed from the model book all the other producers of these embroideries used. Desk or no desk is thus probably a characteristic of a particular production area.

Diocesan Museum Brixen

But now look more closely. Let's explore the embroidery techniques used. The background consists of a diaper pattern. In all three cases: an open basket weave in red silk (faded to pink in Görlitz). The background pattern also seems to be a defining criterion. Most pieces have these sunny spirals in the background. The difference between stitching a sunny spiral (no counting) and a diaper pattern (counting) is a fundamental one and results in a very different product (taste). Therefore, I think this is region-specific and not workshop-specific (i.e. I don't believe there were 'diapers' and 'spirals' in the same region).

Görlitzer Sammlungen 61-03b (Leihgabe der Ev. Innenstadtgemeinde im Kulturhistorischen Museum Görlitz)

The embroidery materials used are pretty similar for all three pieces: linen fabric, gold threads and untwisted coloured silks. However, there is also gold gimp in two pieces. This is the composite thread that goes around the nimbus and along the edges of the clothing in the above picture. The embroidery from Brixen does not have this particular thread. I think that this was a thread that embroiderers made themselves. The edges in the Brixen piece are marked with embroidery. Maybe this specific workshop did not know how to make the thread or was just not keen on working with it.

Chasuble cross Te 154, Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg.

Now look at the filling of the nimbus. The pieces from Magdeburg and Görlitz show Italian couching (laid silk with a gold thread on top). A couple of months ago, I wrote a tutorial on this technique. The piece from Brixen shows a very different filling: a sunny spiral. Is this workshop specific due to the preference of the embroiderer, or is this due to local taste?

One thing that I think is workshop-specific is the border between the orphreys. This would be a perfect way for an embroiderer or an embroidery workshop to put their stamp onto their work. The borders consist of simple basket weave over string padding in all three cases. The border from Görlitz shows these very fancy triangles in silk and gold thread. If you would like to recreate it, have a look at the tutorial I made.

I am collating all related pieces on a Padlet. With a bit of luck, groups will begin to form, and two or more pieces might come from the same workshop. In the future, art historians might be able to locate these groups in a specific region. My Journeyman and Master Patrons have access to this fascinating ongoing research.