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Girdle

Girdle

  • Place of origin:

    Italy (made)

  • Date:

    ca. 1450 (made)

  • Artist/Maker:

    unknown (production)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Gold brocade; base metal; gilding; enamel; niello

  • Museum number:

    4278-1857

  • Gallery location:

    In Store

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Girdles, or belts, were worn by both men and women in the Medieval period. From the mid-fifteenth century, fashionable women wore broad and short girdles like this one high on the ribcage, over a houppelande, a full-skirted, long-sleeved outer robe. Girdles owned by the wealthy were made of fine and costly fabrics and often embellished with silver or gold decorative fittings along their length. The elaborately-worked buckles and strap ends were usually decorated with enamels or niello, often with a family coat-of-arms and/or inscriptions, like this one.

Physical description

Girdle and fittings, tablet-woven cloth of gold with buckle and strap end in gilded base metal, enamel and niello, with 18 flower-shaped silver gilt mounts.
The fabric is decorated with curving branches, lobed leaves and flowers, set against a chequered ground, with integral borders of a stylised rope design.The design of the fabric of this girdle suggests a date of the second half of the fifteenth century and could be as late as 1500. An early example of a lampas cloth of gold woven with a fine, dense pattern, and incorporating a "chequered" effect can be seen in the chasuble of Pius II (Pope 1458-1464) in the Diocesan Museum, Pienza (Ill. Devoti, D, L'Arte del Tessuto in Europa, Milan, 1974, fig.92). Lucca or Venice have been suggested as possible origins for the girdle.

Place of Origin

Italy (made)

Date

ca. 1450 (made)

Artist/maker

unknown (production)

Materials and Techniques

Gold brocade; base metal; gilding; enamel; niello

Marks and inscriptions

VIRTUS VIN[CIT] Latin, 'Virtue Triumphs'
AMORE. VOL Italian, 'Love wants'
'SPERA. IN DIO' Italian, 'Have faith in God'
Unidentified coat of arms in an eight-pointed shield, nielloed on a silver plaque set in the centre of the belt end.

Dimensions

Height: 154.5 cm, Width: 6.8 cm

Object history note

Purchased for 40 pounds in 1857

Historical context note

This girdle is similar in quality to an examples associated with the Malatesta of Rimini: a girdle found in the tomb of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (d.1468). It is tablet woven velvet and single sided (see Flury- Lemberg, 1988). Such expensive girdles would have been woven by single workers on small tablet looms. Their craft was separate to the production of larger luxury fabrics.

Decorative girdles such as this one were controlled in the 15th century by sumptuary laws. In Venice in 1476 girdles could not cost over 15 ducats. Both the goldsmith and the weaver could be fined 100 ducats and receive six months in prison for disobeying this law (Bistort, 1912, repr. 1969, p.356).

Descriptive line

Girdle of gold brocade, the buckle and strap end of gilt base metal, enamelled and set with nielloed silver plaques, Italy, ca. 1450

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Ajmar-Wollheim, Marta and Flora Dennis, eds. At Home in Renaissance Italy. London: V&A Publications, 2006. [Catalogue of the exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 5 October 2006, to 7 January 2007]. ISBN 1851774882
See plate 7.4 (p. 109) and catalogue no. 155.
Campbell, Marian. Medieval Jewellery in Europe 1100-1500, London, V&A Publishing, 2009. ISBN 9781851775828
See fig.72 (p. 71) and p. 97.
Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild. Textile Conservation and Research. A Documentation of the Textile Department on the Occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Abegg Foundation. Bern: Abegg-Stiftung, Bern, 1988. ISBN 3-905014-02-5
Bistort, Giulio. Il Magistrato alle Pompe nella Repubblica di Venezia. Studio Storico. Venice: 1912; facsimile reprint Bologna: Forni, 1969.
See p.356.
Fingerlin, Ilse. Gürtel des hohen und späten Mittelalters. Munich: Deutschen Kunstverlag, 1971. ISBN 3422006451
See catalogue no. 305 (pp.402-3) and plate 460 (p.403).
Lightbown, Ronald. Mediaeval European Jewellery, with a catalogue of the collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum. London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1992. ISBN 0948107871
For a general account of the fashion and form of girdles, see particularly chapters 29 to 31.
Musacchio, Jacqueline Marie. Gifts and Furnishings for the Home (catalogue entries 32a to 32c). In: Andrea Bayer, ed. Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008. [Catalogue of the exhibition held November 11, 2008 - February 16, 2009 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and March 15 - June 14, 2009 at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.] ISBN 9780300124118.
See pp. 100-102.
Devoti, D. L'Arte del Tessuto in Europa, Milan, Bramante, 1974.
See fig. 92.
Sebregondi, Ludovica and Tim Parks, ed. Money and Beauty: Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities. Milan: Giunti Editore, 2011. Catalogue of the exhibition held Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 17 September 2011 - 22 January 2012. ISBN 9788809767645.

Exhibition History

At Home in Renaissance Italy (Victoria and Albert Museum 05/10/2006-07/01/2007)

Labels and date

The girdle was a powerful symbol of chastity within marriage and a treasured fashion accessory. This made it a popular gift for brides at all social levels. It was worn around the waist with one end hanging down in front. This one, with its original cloth of gold, has amorous and religious inscriptions on the buckle. [05/10/06- 07/01/07]

Materials

Silver; Gold; Enamel; Brocade; Niello

Techniques

Gilding; Woven; Engraved; Basse-taille

Categories

Metalwork; Jewellery

Collection code

MET

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Qr_O126649
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