Spanish crimson plain cut velvet, 1500s, with English embroidered orphreys and hood, 1450-75

Given by Sir Charles and Lady Florence Waldstein in memory of Lady Waldstein's parents, Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Einstein

The donors gifted one dalmatic from this set of vestments to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1914 (accession no. T.1-1914) and the other dalmatic, also from the same set, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1915 (accession number 15.141c).
Sir Charles Waldstein (1856 – 1927), known as Sir Charles Walston from 1918 to 1927, was an Anglo-American archaeologist. In 1880, he became university lecturer on classical archaeology at Cambridge University, and in 1883 university reader. From 1883 to 1889 he was director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Sir Charles and Lady Waldstein donated the cope to the Victoria and Albert Museum in memory of Lady Waldstein's parents, Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Einstein, 'whose great collection of textiles and needlework was deservedly famous'. They retained the chasuble (T.82-1978), which remained in the family and was purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum at a Christie's sale in 1978.

Cope of crimson velvet with orphreys and hood embroidered in silk, silver and silver-gilt threads. On the hood are the Virgin and Child enthroned. On the orphreys are apostles and female saints: SS. Apollonia, Philip, Margaret, John the Evangelist, Simon, Mary Magdalene, Bartholomew and Catherine of Alexandria. During the 16th century the hood and the orphreys were remounted on the present red velvet cope in Spain, and embroidered panels with the arms of Sobrarbe, Aragon, were added.
According to an unverified tradition, this cope - together with a matching chasuble and dalmatics (the dalmatics were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, respectively) - was given to the cathedral of Burgos by the Emperor Charles V.

T.46-1914