Embroidery with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin
Date: about 1330-1350
Dimensions:
6 1/2 × 47 1/4 in. (16.5 × 120 cm)
Medium: silk, gold, and silver thread on linen
Place of Origin: Florence, Italy
Classification: Textiles and Fiber
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Object number: 1954.85
Label Text:This embroidery panel was once part of an antependium, a pictorial work to decorate the front of a church altar. Florence was an important site of embroidery in the 14th and 15th century, exporting works North to France and the Duchy of Burgundy. A painter would have drawn the imagery onto linen for an embroiderer—possibly a woman—to stich with silk and gold-wrapped thread. The embroidery depicts episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary taken not from the Bible, but from the Golden Legend—a book detailing the lives of the saints—and other non-Biblical texts popular in the later Middle Ages.
The story is shown as a continuous narrative, like a modern-day comic strip, with each episode occurring in sequence. In the first scene, Mary’s father Joachim is expelled from the Temple, then an angel tells him the miraculous news that his infertile wife Anna will bear a child: Mary, the future mother of Jesus. Subsequent scenes show Joachim and Anna reuniting at the city gate, the Virgin Mary’s birth, the child Mary’s presentation at the Temple, and Mary’s betrothal to Joseph. The narrative scenes continue on a panel now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The story is shown as a continuous narrative, like a modern-day comic strip, with each episode occurring in sequence. In the first scene, Mary’s father Joachim is expelled from the Temple, then an angel tells him the miraculous news that his infertile wife Anna will bear a child: Mary, the future mother of Jesus. Subsequent scenes show Joachim and Anna reuniting at the city gate, the Virgin Mary’s birth, the child Mary’s presentation at the Temple, and Mary’s betrothal to Joseph. The narrative scenes continue on a panel now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Not on view
In Collection(s)