Adventures at the MFA

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 This past Friday, I had an appointment at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass.  It was an amazing experience.

The MFA has four sets of ecclesiastical gloves from the 15th-17th centuries from Spain and Italy.  I had the opportunity to examine them up close and take many pictures.

I’m going to go through each set of gloves in separate posts, but wanted to put in some teasers.

16th century Spain

Dimensions: 11 inches by 5 1/2 inches

17th century Spain

Dimensions: 9 by 4 inches


Early 17th century Italy

Dimensions: 11 1/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches

15th-16th century Spain, approximately 1520

Dimensions: 11 13/16th inches by 5 3/4 inches

Each of these sets were done in silk and gilt-silver threads, hand knit.

I’ve got some fantastic pictures including close ups of the threads which show the number of threads per stitch- typically 3 strands of silk vs 2 strands of the gilt-silver.

I can’t wait to do a deep dive into each of these sets, the meanings of the symbols and the various construction techniques between the sets.


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