Artwork Page for Orphrey Band: The Tree of Jesse

Details / Information for Orphrey Band: The Tree of Jesse

Orphrey Band: The Tree of Jesse

c. 1350

England

Medium
Silk, gold and silver thread, linen; embroidery: split and couching stitches
Measurements
Overall: 85.7 x 18.1 cm (33 3/4 x 7 1/8 in.); Mounted: 109.2 x 28.6 cm (43 x 11 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1949.503
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

From the 1100s to the 1300s in London, both men and women worked as professional embroiderers. Here, the Tree of Jesse, a favorite medieval theme illustrating the ancestry of Christ, appears as a grapevine with three ancestors—Achim, Ezechias, and Eliud—seated on tendrils. Painters often provided embroiderers with designs, revealing a close relationship between the professions.
A vertically oriented embroidered band depicts a light-green grapevine winding over a gold embroidered background, making a column of three roughly oval sections, a stem curving inside each on which a person with light skin tone sits. Each person wears blue and green robes, those in the upper and lower sections wearing cloth hats and have beards, while the person in the center wears a gold crown. The grape clusters are a fifth the leaves' size.

Orphrey Band: The Tree of Jesse

c. 1350

England

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