Gloves

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the seventeenth century, elaborately embroidered gloves were commissioned to be made as presents for distinguished visitors, patrons, and heads of state. Their status as purely decorative objects, rather than practical everyday wear, has resulted in the survival of an unusually large number of gloves of this type.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art