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| Linen, silk embroidery Inv. no. T 6902/1908 Depicted in the medallions: Annunciation to the Virgin, Virgin enthroned with Child, the Three Magi. Below left, alongside the central medallion: Kunigunde, donator of the paraments; to her right, St. Adala, founder of the Convent at Göss, with a model of the church. Paraments from the Convent at Göss Göss (Styria), mid-13th century Linen, silk embroidery Inv. no. 6902-6906, Acquired from the Convent at Göss in 1908 The Museum's collection of textiles includes a wealth of medieval religious textiles, the most significant of which are the paraments from the Benedictine convent at Göss - the only surviving ensemble of church robes preserved from such an early period (ca. 1260). The priest wore the chasuble and cope, the deacon and sub-deacons the dalmatic and tunic. The antependium was an ornamental covering for the front of the altar table. This assortment of paraments can easily be recognized as an ensemble on the basis of its shared technique, coloring, style, and embroidery that entirely covers the simple fabric. Some serious alterations made during the course of the centuries, as well as the free form of the ornamentation, give the vestments a particularly colorful and unusually decorative appearance today. Kunigunde, Abbess of the Convent from 1239 to 1269, donated the vestments and, together with other canonesses, stitched them herself. The images and inscriptions on the antependium, chasuble, cope, and dalmatic are evidence of this quite unusual procedure for the Middle Ages. A painter using ink on the cloth probably designed the scenic representations in the medallions. The nuns then embroidered the scene with colored silk, using various types of stitches. The originally concealed sketches can be seen quite well in places where the embroidery is damaged. The ornamentation and pattern, by contrast, were produced without any precise design, which explains their unorthodox distribution. |
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