Pontifical chasuble with the coat of arms of Suffragan Bishop Balthasar Liesch von Hornau (I)

Roman style chasuble (fiddleback), with the bottom of the front and back slightly rounded. The neck opening is circular, finished—like the edges—with a braided cord. The sides of the front and back are made of a large-repeat voided velvet fabric featuring a dark red pomegranate motif on a golden-yellow ground, with elements of the pattern highlighted by looped metal threads in gold; the lining is plain red satin. The front and back are adorned with central orphrey bands (columns) featuring figural representations set within architectural frames (dark-golden columned arcades surmounted by battlements). The columns are executed in a Jacquard technique combined with hand embroidery: figure details (faces, hands, garment ornaments) and architectural elements are highlighted with colorful hand embroidery using various stitches, primarily satin stitch.

The front column depicts three saintly bishops in pontifical vestments and mitres, holding crosiers, positioned one above the other within architectural arcades under canopies in red, azure, and green (from the top). The uppermost figure holds a book pierced by a sword (St. Boniface, Apostle of the Germans); below is a bishop with a church model (St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, or St. Gregory the Great); at the bottom is a bishop with an open book (St. Augustine or St. Athanasius the Great).
The orphrey adorning the back is in the form of a cross: vertically, it features three figures in arcades (from the top): Christ the King with an orb and the Resurrection banner with a cross, the Madonna and Child, and St. Joseph with a lily. Below appears the embroidered episcopal coat of arms of Balthasar von Hornau (shield with three reed maces, surmounted by a bishop’s mitre, stole, and a crossed crosier and cross). The horizontal arms of the cross depict half-figures: St. Ignatius of Loyola (biretta, rosary, crosier in the form of a shepherd’s staff) and St. Hubert with a stag.

Provenance / Notes:
The chasuble (along with a dalmatic, cope, and stole) belongs to a set of pontifical vestments constituting part of a 19th-century collection of liturgical garments founded by Balthasar Liesch von Hornau (1592–1661), Suffragan of Wrocław from 1625. He administered the diocese during the frequent absences of the ordinaries (Charles Ferdinand Vasa and Leopold Wilhelm of Habsburg) and was a generous patron of the Wrocław Cathedral. Furnishings and liturgical vestments were created from the von Hornau foundation for centuries after his death, bearing his coat of arms in accordance with the founder’s wish.

The chasuble is stylistically and technologically interesting. The use of heavy velvet fabric with a pattern inspired by 15th-century Italian velvets, as well as the richly decorated columns and the style/color palette of the figural representations, allude to Gothic chasubles, while the fiddleback cut is characteristic of post-Tridentine vestments. The columns were produced using industrial technology: the base for the hand embroidery is a wide, Jacquard-woven band featuring figures in Neo-Gothic architectural arcades. regarding the bishops on the front, the identification of St. Boniface is unambiguous, while the attributes of the other two allow for interpretation. The depiction of St. Athanasius the Great, the Bishop of Alexandria who fought against heretics, would evoke the motif of exile from the diocese, experienced by both the saint and the founder, who was forced to flee the diocese before the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War.