A 15th century Italian velvet panel

Circa 1475

The burgundy silk velvet of ferronerie design with stylised pomegranate and thistle motifs. Consisting of joined panels, and bordered with a 16th/17th century braid of silk and metal thread and backed with a blue linen of similar date. The term “ferronerie”, usually employed to denote this class of velvets, is due to the resemblance to ironwork of the voided patterns within which the pomegranates and thistles are arranged. The design varied slightly within the basic template, but a dalmatic on view in the Long Gallery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, accession no. T27W4, is closely related. There is a similar fragment in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 18.24.1, and a comparable panel in the V & A, accession number circ.346-1911. Ferronerie velvets were sometimes employed as a sumptuous backdrop in depictions of the Madonna, as in a work by Crivelli in the Pinacoteca Brera, inventory no. 155-350-351. The painting is bears the date 1482; much the same time as the weaving of the current velvet.

With some small damages.

Provenance: The collection of Rafaello Amati

152cm (59⅞”) x 101cm (39¾”)

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