8354.
A Cope of Crimson Raised Velvet; pattern of the so-called pomegranate design. The orphreys and hood embroidered on a golden ground; the latter with the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the former, with various saints. Velvet, Spanish, the embroidery, German, both of the end of the 15th century. 10 feet 8 inches by 5 feet 8 inches.
The velvet, both for its ruby tone and richness of pile, is remarkable, while its design of the pattern is efficiently shown.
The hood which, it should be observed by those curious in liturgical garments, runs right through the orphreys quite up to the neck, is an elaborate and well-wrought piece of needlework; and strongly reminds one of the picture of the same subject—the death-bed of the Mother of our Lord—by Martin Schön, now in the National Gallery. All the Apostles are supposed to be gathered round her; to the right of the spectator stands St. Peter sprinkling her with holy water from the silver sprinkle in his right hand; next to this chief celebrant is St. John, the acolyte, with the holy water stoop in his left hand, and in his right the lighted taper, which he is about to put into the hand of his adopted mother—an emblem of the lighted lamp with which each wise virgin in the Gospel awaited the coming of the bridegroom. Behind him again, and with his back turned, is another apostle, blowing into the half-extinguished thurible, which he is raising to his mouth; the rest of the Apostles are nicely grouped around. The ground of this hood is of rich gold thread, and the figures of the scene are separately wrought and afterwards “applied.” The orphreys, that are rather narrow, measuring only 5½ inches in breadth, are of a golden web and figured, on the right hand side, with St. Mary Magdalen, carrying a box of ointment in her hands; St. Bernadin of Siena, holding a circular radiated disc inscribed with I.H.S. in his right hand, and in his left a Latin cross; St. Bicta—for so the inscription seems to read—bearing the martyr’s branch of palm in her right hand, and a sword thrust through her throat; and St. Kymbertus in a cope, with a crozier in his right hand, and in his left a closed book: on the left hand orphrey, St. Elizabeth, the Queen of Hungary, with a child’s article of dress in one hand, and a royal crown upon her head; St. Severinus, wearing a mitre and cope, and holding in his right hand a crozier, in his left a church; St. Ursula, with the martyr’s palm in one hand; in the other a long large silver arrow, and having six of her martyred virgins at her sides; and St. John Baptist, with the “Lamb of God” on the palm of his left hand, and the forefinger of the right outstretched as pointing to it. The heads of all these figures are done in silk and “applied,” but the hands and diapering of the garments, as well as the emblems, are wrought by the needle, in gold or in silk, upon the golden web-ground of these orphreys. At the lower part of the hood is “applied” a shield—no doubt the armorials of the giver of this fine cope—party per pale—gules two chevronels argent, a chief or—azure three garbs (one lost), argent, two and one.