Dalmatic with Life of the Virgin
Date:
ca. 1415–1435
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
England
Medium:
Silk,
Silver or gold thread
Dimensions:
2.31 x 1.22 m
Description:
This T-shaped dalmatic, open at the sides and bottom, was worn by a deacon at Whalley Abbey in England. The cloth had been woven in Italy of gilt-silver threads wrapped around a yellow silk core. It has a diagonal pattern of pomegranates and is edged in colored silk and velvet ribbons. The embroidered decorative bands of prized opus anglicanum (English needlework), known as orphreys, depict apocryhphal scenes from the life of the Virgin. On the front are her parents, Joachim and Anne (only Anne has a halo): they are cast out of the Temple, an angel announces Mary's birth to the sheep-herding Joachim, and then Anne and Joachim meet at Jerusalem's Golden Gate. The back represents the birth of Mary, her childhood, and her presentation in the Temple, where she would be put to work weaving the Temple veil. Mary's childhood scene shows her learning to walk with the help of a wheeled wooden frame, a strikingly realistic detail.
Whalley Abbey was a wealthy Cistercian foundation of the late thirteenth century. It was dissolved, along with all the other English monasteries, in the 1530s by order of King Henry VIII, who had broken away from the Roman-rite or Catholic Church. The abbey's costly vestments—a chasuble, maniple (a narrow band worn over the forearm), and a second dalmatic—were preserved for centuries by a local Catholic family, the Towneleys. One of them eventually sold this piece to the founder of the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland, where it is displayed today.
Whalley Abbey was a wealthy Cistercian foundation of the late thirteenth century. It was dissolved, along with all the other English monasteries, in the 1530s by order of King Henry VIII, who had broken away from the Roman-rite or Catholic Church. The abbey's costly vestments—a chasuble, maniple (a narrow band worn over the forearm), and a second dalmatic—were preserved for centuries by a local Catholic family, the Towneleys. One of them eventually sold this piece to the founder of the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland, where it is displayed today.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
10
Repository and Online Resources:
• Learn more about this garment at Glasgow Museums Online.
• See the rest of the Whalley Abbey vestments in the Lancashire Textile Gallery.
Image Credits:
Linda Safran
