Chasuble

The fiddle-back vestment has a blue silk ground fabric with red satin lining. In the middle column there is a continuous decoration of pomegranates, carnations, rosettes, lilies of the valley and dentate leaves on meandering tendrils ramifying symmetrically from a straight stem. In the two lateral fields there are scattered flower stalks, tulips, carnations and pomegranates. At the bottom of the middle strip the letters A C A and the date 1633 can be read. In the middle the silk and metal embroidery is raised, elsewhere it is flat. The design, composition and execution of the embroidered pattern are highly artistic. The ornamentation is a noble example of the specifically Hungarian “aristocratic embroidery”. Its ornaments are of Italian, Turkish and Hungarian origins. The composition of borrowed motifs adjusted to the Hungarian taste is exemplified by the detail of the Turkish carnation with petals of alternating colours in an Italian motif, the “Italian jug”. The provenance of the chasuble and the client who ordered it are unknown, but stylistic analogies point to former Upper Hungary. This art work of the museum directly influenced the applied arts of later ages as the chasuble in the Ecclesiastic Collection of the Matthias Church designed by Maria Hollosy and executed by the crafts society of Ciffer (today Cifer, Slovakia) in 1896 was based on this piece.