Fragments of a Cope with the Seven Sacraments

Description

The piece pictured is the hood. It depicts the Eucharist in the new tradition of the Devotio Moderna that arose in the Netherlands in the fifteenth century. The embroidery uses one of the most expensive of the Tournai embroiders' techniques, the or nué (shaded gold) technique in which the juxtaposed gold threads are more or less closely covered by silk threads. A famous example of this kind of work is the Mantle of the Vestments of the Order of the Golden Fleece dating from around 1425–1450 and now at the Imperial Treasury, Vienna.

The cope was commissioned by Jacques of Savoy, Count of Romont and presented by him to the Bishop of Lausanne. The Coat of Arms of the Counts of Savoy is embroidered at the bottom and show that the work was made before 1478, the year Jacques of Savoy was admitted to the Order of the Golden Fleece, as it lacks the Collar of the Golden Fleece.