Embroidery in the Middle Ages - Around the collections of the Cluny Museum - Exhibition catalogue

FRENCH LANGUAGE

Embroidery with silk, gold and silver threads, which are among the most precious and expensive productions of the Middle Ages, are still largely unknown and eclipsed by other arts. In the Middle Ages, kings and princes had their own embroiderers or went to renowned workshops.

The catalogue presents the different approaches to this art, the production centres, the influences, the techniques, the uses as well as the iconography and the style. It also deals with the figure of embroiderers and sponsors. The relationship between embroidery and painting is addressed through representations of the pieces embroidered in the painting, models from painting, the influence of painting on embroidery, or collaborations between painters and embroiderers.

Finally, each of the five sections deals chronologically and thematically with the major Western centres of this art, respectively in Germany, England, France, Italy and Flanders.