Jesse Cope

The Jesse cope. The Jesse cope. Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. 175-1889.

The Jesse cope, now housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, consists of a number of embroidered fragments sewn together into a cope. The fragments are decorated in the tradition of opus anglicanum. They date to the early fourteenth century.

The fragments of the cope are embroidered with silver-gilt and silver thread and coloured silk, and worked in underside couching and split stitch, with laid and couched work. The ground material is silk reinforced with linen. The embroidery represents the Tree of Jesse. A vine springs from the body of Jesse (according to the Bible he was the father of David), and shelters prophets and ancestors of Jesus. Each figure is identified with an embroidered name.

The cope measures 310 x 164 cm.

The vestment is included in the exhibition on opus anglicanum at the Victoria and Albert Museum, October 2016 - February 2017.

Source: BROWNE, Clare, Glyn DAVIES, and M.A. MICHAEL (2016). English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Catalogue no. 37, pp. 171-175.

Digital source (retrieved 31 October 2016).

V&A online catalogue (retrieved 30 October 2016).

WV

Last modified on Wednesday, 15 February 2017 14:44