Chasuble

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Chasuble- the tabard-like garment worn by a Roman Catholic priest over his clothes when conducting church services- is distinguished by its panels of very beautiful and well-preserved "bizarre" silk. This short-lived style of figurative silk, woven in France, Italy and England, inventively juxtaposed floral and nautical motifs in varying scales, emulating the decorative fabrics imported to Europe from Iran and India. Though the front of the chasuble has been awkwardly cut, patched and reshaped in the nineteenth century to meet modern fashions, the back of the garment preserves the original shape. In the central panel on the Chasuble's back, the same silk is shown in reverse, thereby flipping the palette from white elements on a coral ground to coral on a white ground.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art