Aqueste activitat ja ha sigut realitzada

Renaissance brocades and materials from the New World, symbols of common power

Talk given within the cycle Saturdays at the Barbier-Mueller organised by the Friends’ Association of the Museum.

The so-called brocades, materials for the crown of Aragon and Castilla in the last third of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th century, have sections of gold and silver, some ringed. Technically they are velvets, lampàs and brocatelles. Examples of three types of brocades have been conserved with drawing of pomegranates, and in some cases with heraldic themes on the inside.

In contemporary times, the major cultures of the New World also used gold and silver in the material, but not with gold thread wrapped around a body of textile fibre. The gold and silver was applied by weaving or sowing, especially in the form of small plaques, as can be found in the embroidery of the figures of the Veneered suit of the King Ferran the Catholic. The gold and silver, as symbols of power, were applied in the same period, in the materials of the Old and New World.