2010-07-27

Tame lions

Back from our holiday - visiting museums, what else ;-) - I started sorting through more than 600 photos...
Here is something from the Domschatzmuseum in Regensburg for all who are interested in brocaded tabletweaving:

So called "Wolfgangskasel" (chasuble of St. Wolfgang), dating around 1050.
Patterned silk fabric with embroidery and brocaded tabletwoven bands, "reconstructed" in the 15th century when they used some new silk fabric to fill all the holes in the original garment. Today only little of both fabrics is left, most of the darkgrey fabric is from the latest restoration...

Taking pictures without flashlight was allowed, so thanks to the museum for that!!!

The tabletwoven borders are really georgious, they have a repeating design of birds and lions between flowershaped things and little spacing patterns. The warps is red and almost-black silk, woven in 3:1 broken twill. The dark threads form part of the pattern together with the red that are also the binding threads for the brocading.

The central pattern is bordered by a small row of patterns on each side - they are rather worn, so in most parts of the bands you can not really see them any more.

Here you can also see part of the embroidery done in gold and silk and the linen background.


Luckily for us today the lowest part of the chasuble is quite worn over all, so the gold has almost completely rubbed off from the tablet weaving and you can see whats under the brocading :-)


Here you can clearly see the dark warp threads forming the pattern on a red background.
If you think you now these cute little lions from somewhere - I think they are in Collingwoods book in the chapter about 3:1 broken twill. I'm not really sure for I don't have my book here at the moment.
Nancy Spies mentions this garment and its borders in "Ecclesiastical pomp..."  on page118, 120 and 121. In her list of surviving brocaded bands it's called "Band on the chasuble attributed to St. Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg 11th/13th century"
Unfortunately she states that the original is in Vienna, so don't be confused if you don't find it imidiately looking for a band from Regensburg as I did...
A big "Thank you!" to aislingde for pointing me in the right direction!!!

7 comments:

  1. lovely!!! :) ...but do you maybe have more photos of the embroidery part for me? I really wouldn't mind if you would send them to ego@racaire.at :D

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  2. btw. if you like tabletwoven bands - maybe you would also like this two (from the treasury in Vienna):
    1) 12-13th century
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/4598468840/in/set-72157602018340363/
    2) 1133/34 - the border of the beautiful Krönungsmantel
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/4598467922/in/set-72157602018340363/
    (the whole cloak: http://www.flickr.com/photos/racaire/4598453750/in/set-72157602018340363/)

    :)

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  3. Hi Racaire, thanks for the pictures :-) Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of photos of the embroidery (yes, shame on me), but I'll send you what I have.
    LG, Chris.

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  4. I'm sorry, but Nancy mentioned this band in her book. It's on page118, 120 and 121. Called as Band on the chasuble attributed to St. Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg 11th/13th century.
    But the text says, that the original is in Vienna.

    Also with the description you can find the weaving pattern of the lion.

    To me are the other motives very interesting, but with 132 tablets I refuse to do all the work.

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  5. That's why I could not find it - I looked for a description of a band from Regensburg in her catalogue...
    Thank you for the hint!!!!

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  6. Hooray! I was just trying to work out how I could find out just what this band looks like, especially under the brocading, from all the way in New Zealand (it would probably have involved asking friends of friends to go look at the museum in Vienna, so... unlikely to have gone well ;-) ). Then I find this post! Wonderful!

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