The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Belt with gold framing minute enamel scenes over a band of tightly woven silver threads designed to wrap around the waist before one end extends down to the garment's hem. The enamel scenes alternate between three smaller, quatrefoil, or four-petal flower, shaped sections with flowers or busts and larger scenes mainly featuring musicians and most against a luminescent blue background, sometimes worn away. Occasional rectangular bands feature scenes of courtly love.

Belt for a Lady's Dress

c. 1375–1400

Italy, Siena

(?)
basse-taille enamel and gilding on silver, silver thread, gilt-silver buckle, cast and chased
Overall: 236.5 x 2.9 x 0.6 cm (93 1/8 x 1 1/8 x 1/4 in.)
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1930.742
Location: 109 Gothic Painting and Sculpture

Did You Know?

Look closely at the tiny scenes of courtly love on the plaques that adorn this belt. Given their size, these scenes were designed for the enjoyment of the woman who wore this belt over a sumptuous dress rather than an admirer from a distance.

Description

Because of its extraordinary richness, this belt (also known as a girdle) was both an ornament for the body and an object of great personal luxury. Almost eight feet in length, belts like this were at the height of fashion for both men and women. After being passed around the waist and through the buckle, one end of the belt would fall to the hem of the garment. The belt's many colorful enamel plaques are worked in translucent enamel over decoration engraved into the silver beneath (an enameler's technique known as basse-taille). Within the plaques and cast into the buckle are scenes of courtly love, musicians, and fantastic animals. A large number of translucent enamels were made for secular objects during the late Middle Ages for use on jewelry, cups, garment clasps, and similar objects. This belt is a rare survival among these now scarce objects.
  • The belt is constructed from a tablet-woven textile band overlaid with a silver wire mesh and adorned with 88 quatrefoil basse-taille enamels. Though the silver wire mesh is likely constructed using the loop-in-loop chain-making technique, research is ongoing. The enamels, in two sizes, are mounted on decorative gilt-silver settings attached to the belt’s structure with round-headed rivets. Each rivet is secured on the reverse of the belt with flower-shaped repoussé silver washers. Both ends of the belt are elaborately decorated with gilt-silver plaques with more enamels and chased motifs, featuring anthropomorphic mythical creatures and floral designs.

    The length of the belt (94 inches) allowed it to cinch multiple layers of clothing, then drape gracefully down to the lady’s hem. A hook near the buckle served to secure a chatelaine or similar belongings. The makers of the belt carefully considered the orientation of the quatrefoil enamels to ensure that each image would remain upright when the belt was worn: the enamels cleverly transition from a vertical to a horizontal alignment near the center where the belt begins to drape downward.

    The makers achieved variations in the color of the enamels through the depth of the chasing in the silver and the resulting thickness of the glass overlay. This interplay of opacity and translucency is characteristic of basse-taille enamels. In places, the enamel is so translucent that the tool marks on the underlying silver are visible through the glass.

    Scientific analysis of the glass composition and fiber in the textile further elucidates the makers’ choice in materials. Scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) of the glass suggests that colorants include cobalt, iron, magnesium, and copper oxides. Polarized light microscopy (PLM) of a fiber from the textile band suggests that the makers used bast fibers, likely flax (used to make linen) to weave the band.
  • the belt belonged in the family of Prince Nicolas Mingrelsky
  • W. M. M. “Girdle of the Fourteenth Century.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 3 (March 1930): 35–41. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 35-41 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 58 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 58 archive.org
    Wixom, William D. “A Gothic Madonna from Lorraine.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 10 (December 1974): 343–349. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 343-345, fig. 5 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 68 archive.org
    Dillon, Emma. "Sensing Sound." In A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe edited by Martina Bagnoli, Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2016. Reproduced: p. 108
  • The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (March 28-June 16, 1975).
  • {{cite web|title=Belt for a Lady's Dress|url=false|author=|year=c. 1375–1400|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.742