8355.
Chasuble of Damask Cloth of Gold; the orphreys figured with arabesques in coloured silk upon a golden ground, and busts of saints embroidered in coloured silks within circles of gold. There is a shield of arms on the body of the vestment, on the left side. French, 17th century. 7 feet 3 inches by 2 feet 4 inches.
The cloth of gold is none of the richest, and may have been woven at Lyons; but the orphreys are good specimens of their time: that on the back of this vestment, 4¾ inches in width, and made in a cross, shows a female saint holding a sword in her right hand, and in her left a two-masted boat—perhaps St. Mary Magdalen, in reference to her penitence and voyage to France; St. John with a cup, and the demon serpent coming up out of it; the Empress Helen carrying a cross (?). The orphrey in front, three inches broad, gives us, in smaller circles, St. Simon the apostle with his saw; a female saint (Hedwiges?) holding a cross; and two prophets, each with a rolled-up scroll in his hand. On the back, and far apart from the orphrey, is a shield argent (nicely diapered), a chevron sable between three leaves slipped vert, hanging as it does on the left hand, it may be presumed there was another shield on the right, but it is gone. This chasuble, small as it is now, must have been sadly reduced across the shoulders, from its original breadth.