Chasuble

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The bold, almost brash, design of this brocaded silk, with its oversized crimson flowers and bright green leaves, is perhaps not best suited for a priest to wear when performing the liturgy within a Catholic church space. It perhaps then comes as little surprise that this textile was only repurposed to create the current garment as many as one hundred years after it was woven. Abrasions across the chest area on the front of the chasuble, however, reveal that- once assembled- it must have received plenty of wear.

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