Orphrey
Unknown Artist
15th century
Medium
Silk, gold thread
Dimensions
Overall: 40 3/4 × 7 in. (103.5 × 17.8 cm)
Classification
Textiles-Embroidered
Culture
French
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1914
Accession Number
14.134.10
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the opulent world of medieval ecclesiastical art with this stunning 15th-century FrenchOrphrey*, a narrow embroidered band crafted from luxurious silk and shimmering gold thread. Measuring 40 3/4 × 7 inches, this textile masterpiece was designed as a decorative strip for clerical vestments, such asasubles worn by priests during Mass. Its classification as an embroidered textile highlights the exquisite needlework typical of late medieval France, where workshops produced such items for churches and nobility. The orphrey's motifs, featuring figures of men amid foliate designs of leave...