Screen with six leaves stretched with a velvet... Lot 115

Screen with six leaves stretched with a velvet alluciolato to the fleur-de-lys of Florence, Florentine manufacture, XVIIth century, silk velvet shaped cut crimson, background gros de Tours woven in gold thread looped at regular intervals, said alluciolato. The design of this velvet is based on the heraldic fleur-de-lys of the city's coat of arms, adopted in the Middle Ages. The first design is close to the original, while the second is more influenced by the aesthetics of the Turkish Ottoman floral repertoire, emphasizing the permanent reciprocal stylistic influences and economic exchanges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the elaboration of luxurious velvets, which were as much appreciated by the Italian elites as by the court of the Sultan of Constantinople. The use of this emblematic velvet for Florence is particularly linked to the liturgical vestments surrounding the cult of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of the city, the model remains on the loom of Florentine weavers until the eighteenth century. The testimonies are nevertheless rare: the museum of Palazzo Davanzati preserves an embroidery of the sixteenth century with the same decoration called pallium of St. John the Baptist and a fragment of this velvet (Inv. 337-340). Assembly of the later screen, each sheet stretched with a full width of 280 x 57 cm offering an exceptional yardage of 16.80 m, width of the width 60 cm including edges, (some accidents and wear). Bibliography: Berti (L.), Il Museo di Palazzo Davanzati a Firenze, Electa. Cat. no. 196 reproduced. Orsi Landini, (R.), I paramenti sacri della Cappella palatina di Palazzo Pitti, Firenze, Centro, 1988. Cat. no. 13.